


trembling tender little sigh

by simplyclockwork



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Abusive Relationship, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergent, Canon compliant up to and including parts of The Lying Detective, Catharsis, Descriptions of Drug Use and Withdrawal, Drug Use, FTH, Fandom Trumps Hate, Fandom Trumps Hate 2020, First Kiss, First Time, Fix-it fic, Grief, Guilt, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Mary Morstan is Not Nice, Maybe some whump, Mild mild self-harm scenes, Mourning, POV John Watson, POV Sherlock Holmes, Past Mary Morstan/John Watson, Present Tense, Sherlock Holmes and Drug Use, Sherlock is a Mess, Whump ish, alternating pov, prompt, some canon scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:40:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23114821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyclockwork/pseuds/simplyclockwork
Summary: Lost in his grief after Mary's death, John almost misses when Sherlock needs him most. As Sherlock speeds closer to his own self-destruction, John tries to pull himself together in time to save them both.
Relationships: Mary Morstan/John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 105
Kudos: 180
Collections: A Safe Home-Fics for those looking for one, Fandom Trumps Hate 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mphelmsman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mphelmsman/gifts).



> this fic is for @rebuilding221B on Tumblr, who bid on me for the Fandom Trumps Hate 2020 auction, and gave me this lovely prompt for a fix-it fic for the lying detective. I've been given the a-okay to post this in chapters as I write it, so I'll try to keep it updated regularly. 
> 
> title is from the song _Agnes_ by Glass Animals
> 
> ——
> 
> _agnes just stop and think a minute  
>  why don't you light that cigarette and  
> calm down now stop and breathe a second  
> go back to the very beginning_
> 
> _can't you see what was different then?  
>  you were just popping Percocet  
> maybe just four a week at best  
> maybe a smoke to clear the head_
> 
> _your head is so numb  
>  that nervous breath you try to hide  
> between the motions  
> that trembling tender little sigh_
> 
> _and so it goes  
>  a choking rose back  
> to be reborn  
> I want to hold you like you're mine_
> 
> _you see the sad in everything a  
>  genius of love and loneliness and  
> this time you overdid the liquor  
> this time you pulled the fuckin' trigger_
> 
> _these days you're rolling all the time  
>  so low so you keep getting high  
> where went that cheeky friend of mine?  
> where went that billion-dollar smile?_
> 
> _guess life is long  
>  when soaked in sadness  
> on borrowed time  
> from mr. madness_
> 
> _and so it goes  
>  a choking rose back  
> to be reborn  
> I want to hold you like you're mine_
> 
> _you're gone but you're on my mind  
>  I'm lost but I don't know why  
> you're gone but you're on my mind  
> I'm lost but I don't know why_

It happens again and again. A scene on repeat, a movie on an endless reel inside his head. Too late, John is too late. Mary bleeds out, stammers in his arms, blood soaking through her shirt.

_“Being Mary Watson was the only life worth living.”_

But she hadn’t lived. She had died, bleeding out lifeblood in his arms, and John can’t stop it from repeating in his head.

He walks through the house—the empty house—like a machine. A ghost. There’s a sound, the incessant, endless vibration of a phone, skittering over the surface of a desk. John ignores it. He paces. His hands flex, shake, clench and loosen at his sides. He does not stop, cannot fall still. He does not pick up the phone. Instead, he paces, as if endless movement might make things right again. Like a shark in deep waters: like the sharks curling along the glass walls of the tanks in the room where Mary died, John cannot be still. Stillness means certain death—a cessation of all things, a ceasing to be.

So he paces, he does not rest, and he does not answer the phone.

Sunlight slants in through the front room window, and the baby monitor crackles to life. Rosie’s soft noises drift from the small speaker, and John drags himself across the room. Climbs the stairs to the second floor like a man to the gallows, head hanging, shoulders loose.

When he cradles his daughter to his chest, Mary stands in the corner of the room. She is silent, intangible, but there, and John cannot look away. Rosie burrows against his neck, and John looks at his dead wife. The silence of the empty flat presses in on him like the weight of dirt on someone buried alive.

“I’m sorry,” he says, needing to say it. Needing to break the silence hanging over the room. “I’m so sorry.”

Mary looks at him, her eyes dark and dull.

“I know.”

* * *

Molly arrives in the evening. She smells of shampoo and antiseptic, a lingering scent that John imagines never leaves her skin, just as it never leaves his.

Rosie grabs at Molly’s brown hair with eager hands, and John wonders if his child’s bonding instinct has been built on that smell—the smell of clinical detachment. Of death and sickness. Of purified, searing obliteration.

Mary probably smelled like it, too.

John looks up to offer Molly a smile when she takes Rosie from him, but he looks at Mary instead. Looks at his dead wife and swallows around the empty space in his throat and in his chest.

“Thank you,” he says, speaking to Molly, but looking at his dead wife. Mary’s face is empty, impassive, and Molly’s tremulous smile does little to light up the room. John forces his eyes to her, and Rosie waves a small fist at him. “Thanks,” he says again, and Molly looks at him with gentle empathy.

“Of course,” she replies, voice soft, then hesitant. She clears her throat, shifting Rosie into her other arm. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” They are going to the park. To Regent’s Park. John can’t. He just can’t. He shakes his head, hands curled into fists.

“No.” His reply is weak, almost lost in the way he licks his lips, desperation bleeding through the veneer. “No, I—I have some things to do. Chores, you know.” He forces an almost-smile, and Molly watches him with her big dark eyes, and John knows he’s as see-through as the ghost of his wife, hovering in the corner of the room.

Molly nods, letting him get away with it. She knows what kinds of ‘chores’ he has, they both do. But she doesn’t call him out, and John feels a sick almost relief in his stomach, twisting with remorse. Just once, he wishes she _would_ call him out. Slap his face and tell him to smarten up. Tell him to be a better father, a better human being.

Mary would have done it. But she’s not here, not really, even though she watches them from her spot by the couch. Sherlock would have done it. But John can’t bear to look at him, not when all he sees anytime his thought turns to silvery-blue eyes is the stain of blood, pulsing out from a hole ripped into the chest of his dead wife.

Molly nods again and smiles, a gentle expression. She pats John’s shoulder.

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” she tells him, and John swallows down a bitter taste in his mouth. He should be able to do this without her help—to keep his daughter here, all night, look after her himself. But he can’t, and they both know it, he and Molly. And his dead wife, standing by the window now, her mouth a tight line.

Molly leaves, taking Rosie with her, and John sinks onto the sofa. He buries his face against the fabric.

* * *

The clarity of the day infuriates Sherlock. Rips open something tender and barely healed inside his chest. Rubbing the heel of his hand over the sensitive scar tissue rising on his sternum, he glares down at the laptop in front of him. Mrs. Hudson thinks he cannot possibly be up for this, for The Work.

Right now, with a hole ripped into his life, The Work is all he has.

“Work is the best antidote for sorrow, Mrs. Hudson,” he tells her, and his voice is empty. His fist clenches, fingers rubbing over his thumb.

Behind him, sitting in John’s empty chair, Mrs. Hudson nods. She presses a hand to her face with a sigh. “Oh,” she replies, voice soft, wavery. “Yes. Yes, I expect you’re right.” She moves to rise, makes an offer for tea, and Sherlock stares at the laptop. Feels his chest ache, hollow and bottomless, guilt gnawing an endless space through him.

“Mrs. Hudson,” he says her name without looking up. Blinks and blinks, trying to speak around it, the growing blackness. His head jerks to the side, throat tight, and he says it. “If you ever think I’m becoming a bit—” his voice breaks off over an inhale, and he licks his lips. Continues. “…full of myself. Cocky. Or—” Another breath, this one acrid on his tongue, reminding him of fire and burning and death in a blue-cast aquarium. “Over-confident…” the words are soft, trailing from his mouth to the empty air, and Mrs. Hudson prods him with a gentle reminder.

“Yes?”

He turns, looks at her with desperation. “Would you just say the word ‘Norbury’ to me? Would you?”

Mrs. Hudson looks at him with confusion. She repeats the name back to him like it is a puzzle. “Norbury?” Her head shakes, eyes uncertain.

“Just that,” Sherlock says, and the empty space inside his chest widens a little more. He pulls in a breath, trying to fill the void, and knows there is not enough air in the world to fill it. “I’d be very grateful.” There’s a plea there, in those words, and he turns away before it can become more. His hand shifts on a pile of letters next to the laptop, and he frowns. Feels the hard edge of something other than paper beneath the mail. Sherlock flicks the edge of an envelope up with his thumb.

“What’s this?” he asks, and there’s a small white padded envelope. He pulls it out of the stack, turning it over in his hands. Mrs. Hudson watches, faint concern tensing the corners of her eyes.

“Oh,” she says, waving her hand at it, a damp tissue fluttering between her fingers. “I brought that up. It was mixed up with my things.”

Sherlock’s eyes flick over to her, then back down, looking over the package. He tilts it on its side, tears it open. When he reaches inside, his fingers touch something cold and flat. He grips and pulls the object out, pauses, brows drawing down.

His stomach drops, and he stares at a white DVD. The words _**MISS ME?**_ stare back at him in sharp black writing.

_Moriarty._

“Oh, god,” Mrs. Hudson breathes, getting out of John’s chair. “Is that—”

“Must be,” Sherlock replies, twisting to load the DVD into the laptop’s disk drive. His mouth is dry, a barren desert without rain. His heart hammers in his throat. The rhythm batters against the still-healing gunshot wound in his chest, and Sherlock almost feels as if it might burst through skin and blood and bone, spilling out onto the table.

He sucks in a breath and watches the disk load, Mrs. Hudson perching behind him on the back of his armchair.

“I _knew_ it wouldn’t end like this,” he breathes. The laptop whirs and he stares at the screen, heart still pounding, fit to burst. “I _knew_ Moriarty made plans.”

The disk loads and Mary appears on screen. There’s a small smile on her lips, and she rolls her eyes in a sardonic expression.

“Thought that would get your attention,” she says, and Sherlock’s breath catches in his throat. His heart seems to stop, then sets to racing again. He remembers the feeling of a bullet, ripping through his flesh, and Sherlock swallows hard. Mary is smiling again, and he leans back in his chair, goosebumps rippling over his suddenly too-warm skin.

“So, this is in case…” Mary flashes another smile, looks to the side. “…in case the day comes.” Sherlock presses his lips together, hands twitching on the tabletop as she goes on. “If you’re watching this, I’m…probably dead.” Sherlock swallows, and there’s a tightness in his throat. A swirl of confusion and aching regret, and he doesn’t know if it’s for him or for Mary. He blinks, focuses, listens as she goes on.

“I hope I can have an ordinary life, but who knows? Nothing’s certain—nothing’s written. My old life…it was full of consequences.” Another smile, small and wry. “The danger was the fun part, but you can’t outrun that forever.” Mary’s brows rise, and she nods at him from the screen. From the past, an empty echo through a spinning disk. “You need to remember that,” she says, and Sherlock’s head tilts back, eyes locked and staring at her pixelated image. “So…” Mary pauses, her eyes fixing on something below the camera. Maybe the floor. Maybe her daughter. Sherlock cannot know for sure. “I’m… giving you a case.” Her eyes flick up, blue and startling on the monitor when she looks at him. “Sherlock,” she says, and he finds himself leaning forward. Finds himself drawn in, drawn toward the woman who left him with chronic pain in his sternum and blood on his hands.

“Might be the hardest case of your career,” Mary tells him, and Sherlock feels the empty space gnaw at his ribcage. “When I’m…gone— _if_ I’m gone, I need you to do something for me.”

There’s a stiffness in his body. A tightness once more in his throat that Sherlock struggles to swallow around. Mary’s next words slam into him, a knife in his heart. A ripping pain through his body.

 _“Save John Watson._ _Save_ him, Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s breath catches in his throat. At his side, Mrs. Hudson makes a soft sound, touching his shoulder. He doesn’t feel it—hears her as if from far away. Distant and unreachable.

Mary stares at him from the laptop screen, repeating her words.

“Save him.”

Sherlock pulls in air, fighting not to collapse inward. To collapse in on himself.

 _John_. The name echoes in his head, rips through his chest. _John_.

“Save him,” Mary whispers, and Sherlock forces himself to focus. Mrs. Hudson grips his shoulder, and Sherlock feels himself trying to shake apart. He grits his teeth. Presses his hand to his chest and listens to Mary.

“Don’t think anyone else is going to save him, because there isn’t anyone. It’s up to you. Save him.”

Sherlock bites his lip, tastes blood, and doesn’t care. Mary is staring at him, and he can’t begin to care about something like pain.

“But I do think you’re gonna need a little bit of help with that because you’re not exactly good with people. So, here’s a few things you need to know about the man we both love—and, more importantly, what you’re going to need to do to save him.”

Sherlock chokes. Chokes on his shock, his pain, like jagged shards of glass caught in his lungs. Crawling up his throat and tearing open his mouth.

_The man we both love._

So she had known. Mary had known all along. Had known what John meant to him, and had put a bullet in him anyway.

Of course she had known. He had been stupid, and he had been blind.

_Oh, Sherlock. Neither of us was the first._

His hands clench, fingernails digging into the skin. Mary is telling him what to do. Telling him how to save John Watson—a man he has saved a hundred times before. A man who has saved him just as many.

His nails cut into his palms.

“You can’t save John, because he won’t let you. He won’t allow himself to be saved. The only way to save John Watson is to make him save _you.”_

A sound slips from Sherlock’s lungs, pulled over his lips on his breath. It is a pitiful noise, something broken and torn, and Mrs. Hudson grips his shoulders tighter. Sherlock shakes his head, shakes it until his curls move, and he grabs at the edge of the desk with fingers that feel numb.

 _“Go to_ _hell,_ _Sherlock,”_ Mary hisses, and he gasps, stutters, the breath pushed from his lungs. “Go right into hell, and make it look like you mean it. Go and pick a fight with a bad guy. Put yourself in harm’s way.” Mary’s words are sharp, biting, harsh. Sherlock breathes in empty air, and the pit in his chest widens. “If he thinks you need him, I swear—he _will_ be there.” Mary nods, and Sherlock closes his eyes. Closes them against the vitriol and hungry, ragged force of her voice. He covers them with his hands, bending forward with a shivering sigh.

“Oh, Sherlock.” Mrs. Hudson stands, wraps an arm around his rounded shoulders. “Sherlock.”

He has to do this. He _knows_ he has to.

Raising his head, Sherlock looks at the screen. The DVD ends, and the monitor shows an empty black. Hands shaking, Sherlock closes the laptop, eyes half-open, dark.

He has to save John Watson.

He has to go to hell.

* * *

John opens his eyes to silence and cold air. There’s a shape in his bed, curled beneath the sheets, but it’s just Mary.

It is always that— _just Mary._

He sighs, swinging his legs out from beneath the blankets. Places them on the chill floor and rubs at his face, feeling the ache of sleepless hours pressed into his skin. He doesn’t sleep anymore. Doesn’t really even exist.

John moves through the motions of a man with a soul, stepping into the shower, pulling on clothes, choking down dry toast and brushing his teeth. The face staring back at him in the mirror is not John Watson. It is a shadow, an echo, something to fill empty space.

He spits toothpaste into the sink and turns away.

There’s a knock at the door, and John moves toward it, his steps aimless, drawn forward by the inexorable pull of responsibility. He opens it, finds Molly there with Rosie in her arms, a faint smile on her face.

“Good morning!” she greets him, and John bites back the ire in his mouth.

There is no such thing as a good morning—not anymore. Mary took all those with her. Took them away, even though she stands a few feet from them, haunting every inch of the empty house they shared.

“Hi.” John can’t help the sharp intonation of his words, and the smile on Molly’s face slips. She clears her throat, shifting, obviously uncomfortable. She opens her mouth to respond, and John stares at her face, willing her to call him out. To finally tell him this is unacceptable.

But there is another knock on the door, and she turns to look outside. John stares at the wall, glares at his dead wife, and wishes for silence. Molly’s soft gasp draws his attention back, and John’s head whips around, thoughts scattering.

“It’s Sherlock,” she says, and her eyes flick over to him. The hair on the back of John’s neck rises, and he jerks back, stumbling over the edge of the carpet where it’s rucked up.

“I can’t,” he whispers, and he retreats to the sofa, cringing. Molly stares at him with concern, and John tilts down to the couch, shaking his head. “I can’t—make him go away. I can’t—I _don’t want to see him!”_ The last emerges from his lips eerily close to a shriek, and then Mary is beside him, stealing away his words. “Anyone but him,” he breathes, going limp.

Molly’s eyes are wide and round, wet with teary surprise and concern, but she nods. She nods, and she tucks Rosie against her side, stepping out through the door. It closes quietly behind her, and John collapses into the sofa. His hands scrabble at the cushions, shoving his face hard against the fabric pattern.

Mary stands over him, and her eyes are dark.


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock stands outside John’s home. The door is blue, like John’s eyes. Like Mary’s. Sherlock looks at it, feels like falling, and raises his hand to knock. There is silence, then a muffled noise and Molly steps out, closing the door behind her. John’s daughter is held in her arms. Rosie raises her eyes to his face, and Sherlock offers the tiniest smile, feeling that look tug at his chest. He misses her. Misses John. Misses everything that he has lost.

Which is everything.

“Hi,” Molly says, and Sherlock’s brows drop. Her face is pale, nose red, running, her eyes watery. Sherlock nods, pulling in a breath. Molly nods back, and there is silence, Rosie fiddling with Molly’s hair.

“I just—” Sherlock’s words startle them both, and he pauses for another breath, drawing it out and not knowing why. He wishes John had answered the door. Wishes he could see him, even if John were simply to yell at him. Yell and scream, hurl things at him. God, he just wants to see him. More than anything, he wants to see John Watson. “I just wondered how things were going and—and if there was anything I could do?”

Molly looks at him. She has never been a good liar, wearing everything in her heart out on her sleeve for anyone to see. Sherlock sees it now, sees the way she hesitates, her eyes dark with sorrow. She pulls something from her pocket and holds it out. It is a small white envelope. Suddenly, without knowing why, Sherlock wants nothing to do with it.

“It’s…ah, it’s from—John,” Molly says, her voice rough. She holds it out, an offering, and he has no choice but to take it.

“Right.” The edges brush his fingers, and he wishes it would burst into flame, consuming him with it.

He wishes John had answered the door.

“You don’t need to read it now,” Molly tells him, and Sherlock stares at her until she speaks again, her voice wavering. “I’m sorry, Sherlock. He says—J-John said if you were to come ‘round asking after him, offering to help…” Her words die away, dwindle and fade, and Sherlock’s eyes tighten.

The pit in his chest deepens, and a faint voice sighs in his head.

_Go to hell, Sherlock._

“Yes?” he says, and Molly looks at him like it is her heart breaking, and not his. Which is impossible, because his heart has broken so completely that there is a black, empty space where it should be. First, it was a bullet, now it is John, and Sherlock swears the Watsons are trying to erase him.

“He said—he’ d—that he’d rather have anyone but you.” Molly’s tone dips, softens, repeats in a breath: “anyone.”

Sherlock looks at her and at his Goddaughter. At the blue door, so like John’s eyes. He blinks, and Molly’s eyes brim with tears. She looks down at the child in her arms and turns away. The door closes with a click, a snap of finality, and Sherlock is alone. Here, outside John’s flat. Here, in the world.

Alone.

Turning away, Sherlock tucks the letter in his pocket and walks to the street. He glances over his shoulder, then waves for a cab. He loses himself, recalling Mary’s words.

_Go to hell, Sherlock._

_Save John Watson._

When Sherlock comes back to himself, he is walking along the waterfront. Passing by the aquarium with no air in his lungs and the envelope in his hands. He stares at it, turning it over and over, fingers smoothing along the soft edges. Looking down into the water, he lets go, watching the paper flutter into the Thames, turning dark as it soaks through.

Pulling out his phone, he thumbs through the contacts. Settles on _Wiggins_.

_Go to hell, Sherlock._

He presses on the name and lifts the phone to his ear.

_Save John Watson._

He knows what he has to do.

* * *

Molly comes back into the room, sniffling, her face and eyes red. John lays across the couch, head on the armrest, gaze vacant, distant. Empty. 

Something seems to crack, tearing through the air. Molly steps past him, climbing the stairs with quick, jerky steps. The baby monitor relays her actions to him, and John listens dully to the sound of someone else putting his daughter down in her crib. Cooing to her and singing her a soft song.

Mary stands at the end of the sofa, staring at him, and John really can’t bring himself to care.

“John.”

He looks up, blinking, and Molly is there, standing where Mary was. He stares, and Molly folds her arms across her chest. She looks slight but resolute, her mouth settling into a thin, hard line.

“We need to talk.” Her tone is firm, and John sits up, licking his lips, nervous.

Here it comes. At last, here it comes.

“Why won’t you see Sherlock?” she asks him, and the question takes him by surprise, striking a nerve. John pauses, letting out a deep breath. His hands fold together in his lap, and he looks down at the floor, staring at the pattern of the area rug.

“I can’t,” he replies, and Molly sighs.

“ _Why_ , John?”

His fingers clench, knuckles white, and he thumbs his clasped hands hard down onto his knee. “Because he killed Mary.”

Molly makes a sound then, one that makes him look up. It is soft, breathy, bordering the edge of incredulous. While John takes in her face, she shakes her head.

“You know he didn’t, John,” she says, and he bites down on his cheek, pressing teeth into soft, slippery flesh.

“But he _did,”_ he replies, and Molly shakes her head again, hard and emphatic.

“Sherlock made a mistake.” Her dark eyes pin him in place, and John looks around wildly, searching until he finds Mary against the far wall. Her arms are folded over her chest, and she looks at him like he is smaller than nothing. Molly goes on, and John starts to shake. “A _mistake_ , John. He didn’t kill Mary—Mary _saved his life.”_ Molly’s hands are tense at her sides, and John watches her fingers grab at her pant legs, his own hands trembling against his knees. “You can’t blame Sherlock for Mary’s choices.”

Silence falls into the room, and John’s entire body quivers, and he hears unspoken words in the air. He cannot decipher them, make sense of their absence, but he feels them there, hovering between them. Tearing his eyes from Mary, he looks Molly in the face, looks up at her as she stands over him, and spreads his hands.

“I—I don’t know what to do.”

Molly tenses, her brows drawing down in a frown. “Oh, for the love of— _John!”_ she snaps his name at him like a drill sergeant, displaying an uncharacteristic forcefulness that makes John lurch onto his feet, standing stiff-backed and rigid, at attention. Molly looks at him with desperation, and John’s mouth goes dry when she says, “Mary was—she was not a good wife. She wasn’t even _kind_ to you!”

John rocks back on his heels, eyes flying up, finding Mary’s across the room. She watches him with a blank face, a face too close to the way she had looked that night at 221B—the night when Sherlock told them to figure it out. The night Sherlock’s heart stopped, and John watched paramedics work on him at his feet.

Blood on the floor, blood on his hands. Mary’s blood, Sherlock’s blood. On the pavement outside Bart’s, reflecting blue light under the glass walls of the aquarium.

John collapses back onto the couch, grabbing at his hair, his face, breath locked in his lungs.

“Molly—” he murmurs. “Don’t. Please, don’t.”

But Molly won’t stop. Something shattered when she closed the door on Sherlock’s brittle face, and she won’t stop now. Her words wash over John, and he can only sit there, letting himself drown.

“Mary was controlling, John—she was _manipulative._ ”

John makes a soft noise, almost a noise of negation. Molly goes on, and Mary watches from across the room.

“John, Mary always put you down. She questioned you. Belittled you. She—she _shot_ Sherlock!” The last is spat from Molly’s lips, and John makes a sound close to a whimper, his hands coming up to cover his head. To block his ears, block the words. Molly grabs his wrists and tugs, kneeling down and almost shouting. Her eyes are wide and dark, and John stares at her with helplessness rising in his chest.

“Stop,” he begs, because Mary is watching, and he can’t hear this, he _can’t._

Molly ignores him, gripping his wrists in her small hands.

“John, she lied to you. I don’t know it all, but I know enough. Sherlock told me things—he was worried. He didn’t know how to—John, he needs you. _You_ need _him.”_

“Sherlock pretended to be _dead_ , Molly!” John shouts, and his arms wrap tight around his chest, trying to hold himself together when every part of him wants to come to pieces. “He— _he_ _left me_.” John shakes his head with fierce aggression. “Who _does_ that?”

Molly looks down at him with her spine straight and hard, her jaw clenched. “He did it for you, John,” she tells him, and John shuts his eyes against the words. He doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t. “He was saving your life, John. He—”

“Get out.” The words drop from John’s mouth like shards of glass. His lips are numb, trembling, and he needs Molly to _leave_.

Her face twists, eyes brimming, but she stands her ground. Even when his voice dips, low and dangerous, she holds her place. “John, listen—”

“Get _out_ ,” John snaps, and he’s on his feet again. Body thrumming with violence, he digs his hands into fists, shoves them against his sides. He steps forward, aggressive, lips pulling back. “I said _get out!”_

Molly stares at him. Stepping back, she bites her lip. Vibrating with nervous anger, she raises a hand and slaps him across the face.

“Get your shit together, John Watson,” she hisses, tears running down her face. “Before you lose him for good.” John stands with his head turned to the side, pressing a shocked palm to his reddening cheek. He turns wide, wounded eyes to the woman in front of him, and Molly shoves at his shoulders, making him take a step back.

“You have no idea what you’re doing!” she yells at him. “You have _no idea_ what you’re throwing away.” She points at him, finger digging into his chest through the checkered fabric of his shirt. “Figure it out, John. And do it fast, because you’re running out of time.” She whirls away from him, thundering up the stairs. When she returns, she has Rosie in her arms again, and John opens his mouth to protest. At the expression on her face, he snaps his mouth shut again, the anger fading away.

Molly shoots him a warning look, moving toward the door. She hesitates with a hand on the handle, and her teeth worry at her bottom lip. John can feel the sting of her palm on his face, and he stands by the couch, filled with helpless regret.

“Figure it out, John,” she tells him, and then she is gone, the door closing loudly behind her. John drops down to the sofa, legs giving out. Mary sits at his side, and he can’t look at her. Can’t look at her ghost, echoing through the empty flat—not with Molly’s words rattling through his head.

_Manipulative._

_You need him._

_Get your shit together, John Watson._

John drops his face into his hands, and tears run between his spread fingers.

* * *

The day passes John in a slow crawl, the movement of the sun marked by the light moving across the living room floor. John sits on the sofa and watches its gradual progress. His hands hang loosely between his knees. There is a red mark on his cheek, and he makes no effort to humanize himself. His stomach growls, grows acidic, then aches, and still, he does not move. When the room falls into darkness, moonlight silvering the edge of the window, he rises. Makes his way to the kitchen and pours amber liquid into a tumbler.

The bite of the whiskey snarls in his throat, and John downs the drink in a gulp. Refills and does it again. By the time he slides down to the floor, legs stretched out before him, bottle clutched in one hand and glass in the other, John’s head buzzes with a less-than-pleasant ache.

He raises the glass to his lips and looks up at Mary, standing over him.

“Is it true?” he asks, and she cocks her head to the side, eyes wide and staring.

“What do you think?” Mary replies, and John knocks back another drink.

“I don’t know what to think,” he says, and Mary’s lips purse. He ignores it, tries to ignore her. He pours another drink.

“Just an alcoholic,” she murmurs, and John’s head jerks up. Mary looks him in the eye, and she shrugs. “Guess you _are_ like your father.”

John’s mouth falls open, and his hands drop, the bottom of the bottle meeting the floor with a clunky bang. “How could you say that?” he breathes, and his fingers curl tighter around the neck of the bottle. “You’re _dead_ —what am I supposed to do?”

Mary meets his gaze, level, hard, and she shrugs again. “You tell me, John,” she says, voice cold. “I’m just a figment of your imagination.”

“Fuck _you_ ,” he hisses. Mary glares at him and disappears. John knows she’ll be back, knows she hasn’t gone far. Her words echo in his head, and he digs his fingernails against his face with a growl. The sound rips from deep in his chest, and then he is hurling the bottle of whiskey away from him. It smashes against the wall with a satisfying crash, falling to the floor in shards, dark liquid spilling into the carpet.

Tilting to the side, head pillowed on his arm, John closes his eyes. He feels like he should be crying, like there should be tears running down his face. But he feels dry and empty. There’s nothing left. He curls into a ball, hugging his arms hard against his abdomen, and listens to the silence.

* * *

Dawn paints the flat in grey hues, the early light draping over John’s sullen, empty face in soft shades of blue and gold. His eyes crack open, and he is stiff and sore, temples pounding with the beat of his heart, the force of his hangover. His mouth tastes like cotton.

Lurching to his feet, John steps over the broken whiskey bottle, shoving his feet into shoes. He is aching with hunger, in day-old clothes, wrinkled from sleeping on the floor. He leaves the flat without a second thought for his dishevelled appearance.

Walking through the city before the morning rush, with the day breaking overhead, John almost feels a sense of clarity. His feet carry him down the sidewalk, out into the open air, past sleepy buildings and bleary-eyed commuters. He rides the tube in silence, quiet people settling warm bodies in the seats around him. He stares up at the adverts, unfocused, taking nothing in. The soft murmurs of the starting day merge into a melodic hum. John folds his hands in his lap. Mary isn’t here. For the first time since her death, there is absolute silence in his head, and he breathes the stale air of the train into his lungs.

He steps from the train with purpose in his stride, moving over the sidewalk and toward a wrought iron gate with his head held high. Graves stretch into the distance, some haphazard and crooked, others newer, neater, better tended with flowers set in front. John’s feet carry him along the path he used to walk throughout those two endless years. Mary was cremated. Her ashes are in a box in their cold bedroom, and he has nowhere to go to visit her. But he has somewhere to go, and his legs bring him there without err, without focus. Without coherent thought, John finds himself standing before a black and silver-marked grave. The shine is faded, marked, gifted flowers long since rotted into the dirt.

John looks down at Sherlock’s gravestone, and his hand comes up to his face. His fingers are shaking as they brush the hair from his eyes, and he sinks down to his knees. The ground is cold, frost-covered, soaking into his skin through the thick denim of his jeans. He stays, lets the chill settle in his bones, and looks at Sherlock’s name against the glossy black stone.

“Hey,” he says, voice soft. “I know you’re not here—were _never_ here. But I—I have to talk to someone, and I can’t talk to you, not just yet. So this—this will have to do.” Sherlock’s grave is silent, likely empty, and John digs his fingers into the earth. The ground is hard, stiff with ice, but he pushes until he finds soft, damp dirt. The feeling centers him, anchors him in reality. Looking at the gravestone, John feels something click into place.

He has lost Sherlock before. Thought it was forever. It nearly killed him, that gaping hole. He remembers standing here, on this very spot, where his nails scrape against small rocks and dirt. Standing here and begging Sherlock not to be dead.

Asking for a miracle.

_Careful what you wish for._

John pulls his hands from the ground, getting to his feet with slow, aching knees. Dirt drops from his fingertips, and he brushes them off on his pantleg.

He lost Sherlock once, and here he stands, letting it happen again. Molly was right—he needs to get his shit together.

“I’m sorry,” he says to the empty grave at his feet, and he pulls his phone out. “I’m sorry, Sherlock.” He stares at the phone screen with Mary standing off to the side, watching him with dark, empty eyes.

John takes a deep breath and dials Sherlock’s number. With the mobile pressed to his ear, he listens as the connection rings out, beaming up to the satellites rotating above, unseen in the daytime sky. The line trills and trills, ending in an all-too-familiar answering machine.

_You have reached the inbox of Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective. Don’t be boring. Mycroft, if this is you, kindly sod off._

John giggles at the message, a wet, pathetic sound that he can’t swallow down. His vision blurs, eyes brimming, and he wipes the moisture away as the beep sounds.

“Sherlock.” The name feels thick in his mouth. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t your fault. Mary—she wasn’t your fault. I know that, I understand that now. Look, it—things are complicated right now, and I know I’ve really made a mess of this. I’m trying, I promise. I need to see you—I _want_ to see you, but I just—I need some time. Some space. Just…don’t give up on me, Sherlock. Because I’m not giving up on you.” John pauses, breathing deep. He opens his mouth to say more, though what he does not know, and the message runs to an end with a second beep. The line goes dead, and John looks at the phone, cradled in his dirty hand.

Raising his head, he looks at the dark gravestone again, left hand clenching and releasing at his side. After a moment, counting out the seconds, John lifts the phone again. Opening a browser, he searches for a new therapist.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: for substance use. I work in a safe injection site, and I've tried to be accurate in describing the injecting of substances in this chapter.**
> 
> Also, a 'flail' is something that sometimes happens when people use stimulant-type drugs. It can look different from person to person but is often characterized by energetic, almost hyper movements. Some people pace, others literally 'flail' their arms around, some just can't stop moving. I've seen someone who raps non-stop during a flail (really, really well!) It can be incredibly exhausting, especially when it doesn't stop for hours. 
> 
> Anyways, this is just my regular reminder when writing characters who use substances that, despite all the discourse and stigma, people who use substances are human beings, valid of respect and humanity, and that my writing is never meant to pass judgement upon anyone who uses substances.

Sherlock’s phone buzzes, pings, and falls silent. Curled up on the sofa, he wraps his arms around his knees, pulling them to his chest, and stares at the barren fireplace. 

_Go to hell, Sherlock._

There was a woman here—of that he is relatively certain. He recalls bits and pieces. Snippets of reality, or perhaps a dream. Faith Smith. Words and understanding. A note, with blue-scrawled writing. Culverton Smith, her father. Renowned entrepreneur, worshipped philanthropist. He is a serial killer. Sherlock is sure. He knows it, knows it in his bones, and in the chemical rush pulsing through his veins.

_Anyone. Anyone._

His hands start to shake, and he stumbles up to his feet, tripping across the sitting room. There is so much information. So much wild, rapid input that he cannot process. Sherlock lets out a low growl, picking up sheets of paper, tossing them across the room. They drift to the floor, onto the furniture, a fine rain of white and sharp edges. 

_Save John Watson._

A snarl catches in his throat, rips through his mouth, and Sherlock tangles his shaking fingers deep into his curls, yanking. He whirls, staring at images spread across the wall: Culverton Smith’s face, plastered over the wallpaper in a piecemeal collage. 

There is a gun in his hand, words spilling from his lips, and he feels like a hurricane. 

_Go to hell, Sherlock_.

He is there—deep within purgatory. Twisting and tearing himself to tiny, minuscule pieces across the red rug spilled over the floor like pooling blood. There is a terrible roaring noise inside his head, pushing out from his ears, against his temples, and Sherlock shouts into the empty sitting room. The words are still dropping from his lips, pouring out like a flood, and the gun is heavy and cold and hot in his hand. 

His phone dings in the corner, a reminder of a voicemail. Sherlock points the gun at it with a wild light in his eyes. There’s the sound of footsteps on the stairs, soundwaves rippling to him too late, time delayed by his burning brain. 

He is on fire. He is an inferno—a blazing effigy to Hell itself. 

Mrs. Hudson is standing in the kitchen, tea in hand, a single cup shaking against the porcelain saucer, and Sherlock thinks she is an earthquake. The earth element to his consuming fire. John is water, the only tidal force that could possibly put him out.

_Save John Watson._

But John is not here. There is just Sherlock and his flame, and Mary’s dying wish is the air, feeding, feeding, feeding the ravenous, burning conflagration that eats him up from the inside out. 

_Go to hell, Sherlock._

Mrs. Hudson is speaking to him, and he swings on her, gun in hand. Her face looks scared, her eyes far too wide in her aged face. Sherlock watches the teacup tilt, spilling from her hand. It happens in slow motion, a frozen point fixed on the murky brown drop of tea tilting from the edge. He reaches for it, releasing the gun, bending to catch the cup and saucer.

The set has a flower pattern, delicate pink and white. It is Mrs. Hudson’s favourite tea set, and Sherlock cannot let it fall. Must keep it from shattering upon the kitchen floor. He cannot say why, cannot fathom the utmost importance of this necessary action. Perhaps it speaks of metaphor, the saving of fragile things—

_Save John Watson_

—but Sherlock does not question the motive. He reacts, stoops, catches the delicate dishware and rises. Finds himself staring down the barrel of a gun. It is familiar, silver and large, and Sherlock frowns. How did it get there, in Mrs. Hudson’s hand? An image flashes through his head, of the same gun in his own grip—of Culverton’s face on the walls. Mrs. Hudson is speaking to him. Asking about handcuffs, of all things. She’s borrowed them before? Smackhead? 

Sherlock blinks, disoriented, the sound of her voice drifting from an endless precipice. There is a chasm in the floor, a veritable Grand Canyon ripped right through the kitchen, and they stand there, balanced on its edge. Can Mrs. Hudson not see it? It seems impossible, yet she goes on looking at him, blue dressing gown draped from his thin shoulders, teacup and saucer in shaking hand. 

_Go to hell, Sherlock._

His eyes roll up in the back of his head, and Sherlock disappears into the chasm at their feet. 

* * *

John rolls a small marble in his hand. Looks down at the glassy gleam between his fingers, and scowls. It’s supposed to be a ‘grounding exercise’—meant to settle him when his mind begins to fly apart. Instead, it reminds him of childhood, feels child-like. Only serves to retrieve suppressed memories of a youth spent hiding from an enraged father beneath the dark space under his bed. 

When he looks up, he sees sunlight, and he is standing on the sidewalk. In the distance, Speedy’s familiar red awning stands out like a sore thumb. 

Sherlock has not returned his calls, his messages. The radio silence weighs heavily on his shoulders, and John tries to move forward. 

A shape forms in front of him, the familiar figure of his dead wife. John stops. Freezes. Digs his hands into fists. The marble pushes hard against his palm, and John wishes he could throw it through Mary’s face. 

Over the past several days, realization has sunk in. Made a home deep in his spine. Molly was right: Mary was abusive. She made him feel small. Made him less, and forced Sherlock into the same plight. 

Her words ripple back to him, and John’s mouth goes tight and small. 

“Why are you here?” he says, speaking to the apparition of his dead wife. “Why won’t you leave?”

Mary’s head cocks to the side, and she raises a brow. Her expression is full of pity, of sardonic irony, and John wishes he were the one who was dead. “I’m you,” she replies, spreading her hands. “Where else would I be?”

John’s jaw tightens. He feels the eyes of people passing by upon him, digging into his back, and he ignores it. “What do you mean?” he demands, and Mary’s eyes look skyward, as if he is a small, errant child, and she is tired of explaining the simple things inherent to the world to him.

“I’m a figment of your imagination, John,” she says, and a small, joyless smile moves over her face. “I’m your guilt.” 

John rocks back on his heels, hands clenched. The marble is cold and hard, anything but grounding. He feels he might float away, untethered by the image before him. John grinds his teeth together. “I’ve done nothing wrong,” he tells his dead wife, and Mary watches him with that cruel little smile on her lips.

“Prove it,” she says. She opens her arms, spreads them out at her side. “Prove your innocence, John Watson. Prove to me—to _yourself_ —that you have nothing to be guilty of.” 

He tries. He really does. John lifts a foot, ready to do it—to move forward, move on. Move through _her_. But his legs carry him backwards, and his heart sinks like a stone. Mary’s face is bitter. Triumphant. She lowers her arms, crossing them over her chest.

“That’s what I thought,” she says, and John feels small again. So utterly, unbearably low. Mary tilts her head and jerks her chin at the street behind him. 

“Go home, John Watson,” she tells him. Her eyes are sharp, words biting, and John wants to collapse. Crumble. Disintegrate, dissolve, and drift apart. Mary looks at him with disgust in her eyes, and he wants to simply stop. 

“Go home, and remember why this is your fault.”

John goes home. Sits in the dark and wishes for a drink. But the whiskey has long since soaked into the carpet, and there is glass on the floor. He holds the shards in his hands, staring at the pieces. He holds them. They cut into his skin, and he holds them. 

* * *

Sherlock wakes to find Wiggins bent over him. His head aches, body screaming. He blinks up at him, and there is a dull, heavy pain at the small of his back. _Kidneys,_ he thinks, the first clear thought he has had in a day and a half. Maybe longer, he can’t be sure. Time seems unreal now, a figment of his imagination. Culverton Smith’s face stares down at him from a picture stuck to the kitchen cabinets, and Sherlock shuts his eyes with a groan. 

“You’ve really done a number on yourself, haven’t you?” Wiggins says, and Sherlock’s mouth twists to the side in an annoyed grimace. 

“Time for a top-up,” he responds, ignoring the faint concern tinging the other man’s tone. He struggles up to a sitting position and pauses, waiting for the sick spinning in his head to cease. It doesn’t. Just builds into a crescendo of nauseating, temple-rattling, throbbing pain. Sherlock lurches to his feet, scrambles for the sink, and vomits. His body clenches around the heaving like a collapsed building, and his hands shake where they grip the counter. 

When he turns, Wiggins is watching him with apprehension. Sherlock ignores him, wiping the back of his hand through the mess around his mouth. 

“Shut it,” he says, pushing past the man to retrieve a plastic needle from the kitchen table. Wiggins steps aside, but his eyes are narrowed.

“You’re going to overdo it,” he tells Sherlock. The detective waves a hand, pushing up the sleeve of his robe with the other. But Wiggins is persistent. He grabs Sherlock’s wrist, long fingers tense. “Sherlock.” There’s a warning in his voice, and Sherlock shoots him a look.

 _Go to hell, Sherlock_.

“I can’t stop,” he says. His voice sounds rough and alien, even to him—an exhausted, rasping scrape over his vocal cords. “Not now.” Shaking Wiggins’ hold off, he slips the tip of the needle into the skin above a blue vein. Flags, watching red swirl into the barrel, and slowly injects the blood-tainted substance into his body. The rush is immediate, a torrential flood of lightning and fire in his veins. It is like burning from the inside out, and Sherlock shuts his eyes, sucking in a breath as his body is engulfed within its own internal funeral pyre. The surging storm steadies, eases, and dissipates, and his eyes open slowly. He can almost feel the contracting of his pupils, and the urge to rocket into action spurs him up, leaping from the kitchen to the sitting room. His arms rise, thrumming with energy, and his mouth is open, loud, excited breaths issuing forth.

“Yes!” he crows, hands clenching into exuberant fists. “Yes—I see it now. I _can see it!_ ” Sherlock presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. Pushes until he sees stars, unable to tell if they are real or imagined. He laughs, a sharp bark, laughing and laughing. 

_Go to hell, Sherlock._

Wiggins watches him nervously, well acquainted with a flail high, and follows into the living room, sliding the door to the kitchen closed behind him. “What do you see?” he asks, careful. Sherlock’s arms are in the air, hands grabbing at motes of dusty light. They fall to his side, and he whirls. 

_Save John Watson._

“Wait—” he points an accusing finger at Wiggins, brow darkening. “You’re not Mrs. Hudson.” His head tilts, mouth twisted to the side. “She was here—where is Mrs. Hudson?” His voice rising, Sherlock marches to the top of the stairs. He calls down, cupping his hands around his mouth to amplify the words. “MRS. HUDSON?!”

Wiggins’ hand comes down on his shoulder, steering Sherlock back into the living room. “She’s not here, mate.” He closes the door behind them, shoving Sherlock toward the couch. Sherlock goes, clumsy legs dumping him in an unceremonious heap on the sofa. “She said she had to see someone.” Wiggins watches Sherlock bound back to his feet almost immediately, pacing to the fireplace. “She threatened to call your brother.” 

Sherlock waves a hand, dismissive. “Sod him, the bloated bastard,” he mutters. His fingers skate over the mantle, nail catching at a deep groove. “Something’s missing.” Squinting, he scratches at the old wood. “A knife? Paper?” He taps a finger to his bottom lip. “No…a clue?” He spins, throwing his arms out to his sides. “I have a meeting!” he declares, and Wiggins takes a step back. 

“A wot?” he asks, his voice slow and cautious. Sherlock strides forward, grabbing Wiggins’ shoulders and shaking the other man. 

“A—a thing! A meeting. An accusation? Possibly.” Sherlock scratches absently at his arm, smearing blood into the crook of his elbow. Wiggins swats his hand away, and it falls to Sherlock’s side, tinged red at the fingertips, squinting into the middle distance. “There was…a tweet.” 

Wiggins just stares at him. “You’ve had too much, mate.” 

Sherlock grins and bounds past him into the bathroom. “No time for your nagging,” he replies, throwing his robe onto the floor. “The game is up!”

“Pretty sure you mean ‘on,’” Wiggins says, and Sherlock makes an annoyed noise, flicking his fingers, closing the bathroom door in the other man’s face. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [arianedevere](https://arianedevere.dreamwidth.org/63783.html) for their awesome transcripts of every Sherlock episode. Originally, I was re-watching and taking notes, but that was time-consuming, so big huge thank you for their hard work in transcribing the show!
> 
> This is canon-compliant for part of the therapist conversation (most of), then goes off on a divergent scene.

Sitting in front of a large bay window, John feels the grey light of the dreary London day on his face. The wan daylight filters into the large room, illuminating pale wood floors and a red carpet that reminds him of the one in the sitting room at Baker Street. He shifts his eyes from the blood hue to the woman seated across from him. She is tall and willowy, long-fingered hands settled in her lap with poised ease. Her face is a work of severe angles, dominated by a piercing stare. Something about her reminds John of Sherlock, but the eyes are wrong—a muddy brown, instead of a sharp, glacial blue. The hair is wrong, too. A shoulder-length ash-brown, shot through with strands of grey, a far cry from brackish-brown curls. Dimly, he realizes he has already forgotten her name. She is speaking, asking him about his morning, and John focuses with a slow drag of reluctance.

“Tell me about your morning,” the therapist says, voice light, inviting. “Start from the beginning.” 

John offers her a tight smile. “I woke up,” he says. The light filtering against the side of his face holds no warmth, and he swallows, licking his lips.

“How did you sleep?” the woman prods, and John’s face tenses.

“I didn’t.” He pauses, amending. “I don’t.” 

The therapist fixes him with a sharp look, her head tilting. “You just said you woke up,” she points out, and John’s body goes stiff.

“I stopped lying down,” he corrects, thinking back to that morning. Mary had been there, as always. She is there now, leaning against the wall behind the therapist’s chair. He avoids her gaze, but it sits on his skin like something acidic, eating away at him.

“Alone?” the therapist asks, and John narrows his eyes at her.

Obviously alone. John is always alone. “Of course alone,” he replies, an edge of reproach in his voice. The therapist quirks an eyebrow.

“I meant Rosie, your daughter.” 

John bites the inside of his cheek, feeling sudden anger rise in his chest. It dies quickly, leaving behind a hollow space. “She’s with friends.” 

The therapist replies with a question, and his back is up again, all at once. “Why?”

“Can’t always cope,” he replies, tense. “And, uh…” he thinks back to the broken whiskey bottle—the glass on the floor. “Last night wasn’t…good.” John flexes his hands, wishing for a drink now. The small cuts on his palms flex and sting, and he curls his fingers tight, revelling in the pull.

“That’s understandable,” the therapist replies, and the anger is back, flickering in his stomach, dancing blue and red, like a warning.

“Is it?” John asks, his voice tight. “Why is it understandable?” He barks a bitter laugh. “Why does everything have to be understandable?” His smile is tight. It feels wrong and false on his face. “Why can’t some things be _unacceptable,_ and—and we just say that?” John is itching for a fight. For any outlet that includes violence. His hands flex, and he knows he won’t get it, not here. 

The therapist’s response is soft, gentle in its kindness. “I only mean it’s okay.” 

“I’m letting my daughter down,” John snaps, unbalanced. “How the _hell_ is that okay?” 

“You just lost your wife.”

The words sink into his skin—eat away at his thudding heart. John curls his hands back into fists. “And Rosie just lost her mother,” he replies, clearing his throat around the lump rising there. The air of the room tastes bitter on his tongue. 

The woman offers him a sad look, her dark eyes blinking slowly. “You are holding yourself to an unreasonable standard,” she tells him, tender, and the fire in John’s chest roars into an inferno.

“No,” he grits out, rough and hard. “I’m _failing_ to.” 

A moment stretches out before the therapist speaks again. “So—there is no one you talk to? Confide in?”

John stares at the red carpet. Remembers days spent at Baker Street. The smell of rain and chemicals. A grinning skull, sitting above a fireplace. “No one,” he says. Mary stares at him over the therapist’s head, and he can feel the dark, reproachful heat of her gaze. Silence stretches out again.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” the therapist asks, and John tenses his muscles to keep from twitching in surprise. Is it really this easy to see right through him? Is he that transparent? As incorporeal as the spectre of his wife, haunting the far wall of this pale-lit room?

“No,” he says, and his eyes flicker to Mary. 

“What are you looking at?” The therapist turns, twisting to look over her shoulder. John drops his eyes to the floor. The red carpet fills his vision, and he drags his eyes to the therapist’s sharp face. 

“Nothing.”

The therapist looks at him, studying, her eyes narrowed. “You keep glancing to my left,” she says, and John’s heart sinks.

“Oh—I suppose I was just…looking away.” John forces a nervous laugh, and his stomach plummets. 

Those brown eyes are heavy on his face. The therapist regards him like an experiment, and John fights the urge to squirm. “There is a difference between looking away,” she says, slowly, her voice even, level. “And looking to.” A pause, a slight smile. “I tend to notice these things.” 

John offers her a tight smile in return. This is too familiar—too close to something he has been trying to repress. “I’m sure.”

The therapist breathes a soft laugh. “Now, I’m reminding you of your friend, I think.” Her accent is strange, lilting and then flat. John can’t quite place it. It morphs, transforming. Scottish, then almost Germanic. An edge of something like French. He feels dizzy and pastes a small, dead smile on his face.

“It’s not necessarily a good thing,” he replies, and the therapist’s eyes sharpen.

“Do you speak to Sherlock Holmes?” she asks, and the question hits John like a bullet, the name cutting into him.

“I haven’t seen him,” he mutters, voice hard. “No one’s seen him. He’s locked himself away, in his flat.” He glares at the window, turns back to the woman across from him. “God knows what he’s up to.”

Her next question rips into his chest. “Do you blame him?” 

“I don’t blame him,” John says, before pausing. “He won’t answer my calls.” The words emerge in a whisper, broken at the edges. 

“He hasn’t tried to make contact with you?” the therapist asks, and John looks at his hands. 

“No,” he says, soft. “Not—not since I asked our friend, Molly, to give him a—a letter.” He stops, pressing a hand to his head, rubbing a thumb over an eyebrow. “I made her tell him to leave me alone. To stay away.”

“Why?”

John shakes his head, clenching his left hand around a tremour. “Because I just. I can’t see him. Not right now. Not yet.” 

The therapist’s eyes narrow. “Why? Why not now?” she presses, and John’s hands are tight fists once more. He shakes his head, does not answer. She continues, breaking the silence. “What did the letter say?” 

John looks out the window, biting his lip. His face feels like a mask. Too small. Tight and suffocating. “It said…it said that I didn’t want him in my life anymore.” He pulls in a breath, forcing the words out. His voice is a pitiful whisper. Mary’s eyes lock onto his face, and he powers through. “That he is no longer Rosie’s godfather, and need not concern himself with us anymore.”

The therapist is studying him, her face unreadable. “Did you mean it?” she asks, and John’s head jerks up.

“What?”

Folding her hands in her lap, the image of perfect calm, the therapist raises her eyebrows. “That you don’t want Sherlock in your life anymore. Did you mean it?” 

John stares at his own hands, clasped tightly together. “I—I don’t…no.” The air rushes out of his lungs in a loud, heavy breath. “No, I didn’t mean it,” he admits, voice small. 

“Interesting,” the therapist says, after a short pause. John looks up at her, brow furrowing.

“Is it?” he asks, harsher than intended. The therapist’s head tilts to the side, evaluating.

“Why would you write that note and have Sherlock receive it if it’s not how you feel?”

John stares out the window, jaw tense. “It’s how I felt at the time.”

“And now?”

John remains silent, avoiding eye contact. He glances at Mary, sees an impassive face, and looks away again. 

“What changed?” the therapist prompts. She leans forward, her face sharp. “John—what changed?” 

The silence stretches out. Then, “what do you know about abusive relationships?” John’s voice is small, hard even for him to hear. He licks his lips, nervous. Across from him, the therapist sits back, surprise flickering over her face at the abrupt shift in topic. 

“From a professional perspective, quite a bit. Personally? My experience is not an appropriate topic in a therapy session.”

John shakes his head. “Professionally is fine,” he murmurs, hands clasped tight together. His palms are sweaty, salt stinging in the fine cuts. The therapist leans forward, fingers steepled beneath her chin. The familiar posture hits him like a slap in the face, and John sucks in a breath. 

“Why do you ask, John?” the therapist presses. Her eyes sharpen, the almost predatory interest in her face forcibly reminding him of Sherlock. John sucks in another breath, and her next words punch into the air between them. “Was Sherlock abusive to you? Is that why you won’t see him?”

John’s head jerks back, shock rippling over his face. “What?” he barks, brow furrowed. “ _No!_ God, no!” He shakes his head, vehement, still stunned. “No, no—Sherlock wouldn’t…he isn’t…” John shakes his head again, aghast at the very thought. Sherlock would never hurt him—not on purpose. The realization sinks into his bones, and John swallows loudly. “No, that’s not it. Besides, it wasn’t like that. Me and him, we never—“ he wipes a hand over his face, voice dying off.

The therapist is watching him, her face intense and focused over her steepled hands. “Does that bother you?” she asks, and John frowns.

“Does _what_ bother me?” 

She shifts forward, placing her hands on her lap, palms down. “That you were never a couple.”

“Bloody hell,” John mutters. He closes his eyes with a sigh, the therapist waiting patiently. He takes a deep breath. “Our—my friend, Molly. She said—” he pauses, almost chokes, then spits the word out in a flooding rush. “She said something to me. Something about—” he pauses, then speeds on. The words are an oncoming wave, threatening to bury him beneath the waters. “Molly said something about my wife. She said Mary was abusive. And, I—I don’t…” he shakes his head. “I don’t know what to think about it.” 

The therapist is staring at him, her features hard. Sherlock’s face flashes over his view, and John closes his eyes with a stuttering sigh. 

“Do you think it might be true?” she asks, and John’s eyes fly open. He clasps his hands and doesn’t answer. 

“John,” she prompts. He does not respond, and she tries again. “John. Do you think Mary might have been an abusive spouse?”

John turns his head, looking out the window. He can’t look at her, because then he’ll have to look at Mary, and he can’t do that. He feels eyes on him, both of them watching him, and closes his own, breathing out his answer in a sigh, heavy with defeat.

“I don’t know.” 

* * *

John’s feet drag on the way home. There is a great weight on his shoulders, made heavier by the therapy appointment, rather than lightened. A cold wind blows against his back, and he huddles deeper into his jacket, his face bitter. Approaching his flat, he looks up, pausing. 

Mrs. Hudson is sitting on the steps, Molly is at her side, her face pensive. They turn at the sound of John’s footsteps. The smile falls from Mrs. Hudson’s weathered face, the corners of her lips turned downward in a grim expression.

“Mrs. Hudson?” John greets her, holding out a hand to help her stand. She accepts the assistance with a grimace, holding her hip with a sigh.

“Thank you,” she says, looking him over. John stares at her, then looks to Molly, who rises as well. 

“Uh, you’re welcome,” he replies, looking at Molly. She is watching him with a complicated expression on her face, and John’s stomach plummets. “Oh god,” he breathes, horror eating into his chest. “What—did something happen?” The two women exchange a look, and the feeling intensifies. John feels like he is balanced upon a precipice, and he locks his arms around his middle. 

“John—” Mrs. Hudson begins, and John shakes his head. It is a violent act of denial, and Molly makes a small, nervous sound.

“Is he okay?” The words crash out in a rush, John’s eyes going wide and wild. “Sherlock—is it Sherlock? Oh god, what happened?” 

Molly’s hands are on his arms, soothing. She squeezes, the pressure filtering through the panic rising in his chest. “Sherlock is—” she hesitates, shooting Mrs. Hudson a look. Mrs. Hudson shakes her head, and John’s breathing ratchets up, coming fast and quick. Molly is continuing, her words slow and soothing. “Sherlock is fine, for now.” Her eyes tense. “John, there’s something you need to see.” 

John stares at them, his knees shaking, his body weak. He looks around, a thought filtering slowly through the haze of distant panic. “Where’s Rosie?” he asks, and Molly gives his arms another light squeeze. 

“She’s with your neighbour.” Her voice is reassuring, and John breathes out a long sigh, trying to push the amped-up energy down. 

“What is it?” he asks, looking between their tense faces. “What do you need to show me?”

* * *

The video is horrific. Mary’s face stares out at them from the tv in the sitting room, the flickering light from the DVD images painting over the pale, incorporeal figure of his dead wife standing in the corner. John sits on the sofa like a rock, Mrs. Hudson on his left, Molly on his right. Mrs. Hudson is holding his hand, the one with the ceaseless tremours, and he barely registers the soothing sweep of her thumb over his skin.

Mary is talking, an echo from the past, her face amplified by the screen. She is not talking to him. No, she is talking to Sherlock. Snippets slam into him, taking his breath away, choking him bit by bit.

_Save John Watson. Save him._

_The man we both love._

_The only way to save John Watson is to make him save you._

_Go to hell, Sherlock_.

John makes a low noise. He rips his hands free, clasping them tight over his stomach. He feels he might be sick, but swallows the nausea down, head aching. 

“Oh god,” he breathes, eyes closing. “Oh my god.” 

“He needs you, John.” Mrs. Hudson’s voice makes him turn, eyes opening again. Her face is tight with pain, and he sees himself, reflected in her sad eyes. “You need him.” 

John looks back to the television as Mary’s face fades away, into black. He swallows. Everything feels numb.

“Where is he?” he asks, and the words are edged with steel. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Credit once more to [arianadevere](https://arianedevere.dreamwidth.org/63783.html) for their transcripts for the dialogue! After this chapter, we will be going very much into canon divergence :)

John wasn’t sure what to expect, but the last thing he expected was to be taken to a hospital. The building looms up, and John’s mouth is dry. Somewhere inside, Sherlock is destroying himself. Picking a fight with a bad guy, as Mary had ordered him to. He presses a hand to his stomach, willing away a sudden surge of nausea. Molly’s words echo in his head, and his legs begin to shake as he steps out of the cab.

_He’s using again, John. It—it’s bad. I don’t think he has much time left. You need to stop him, John, before he kills himself. He’s doing this for you, trying to save you, and he will kill himself doing it. He has accused someone of being a serial killer—Culverton Smith, a big-time charity buff. He’s completely lost it, John._

John had stared at her, his hands twisting together in his lap. Breathing had been hard, air getting caught in his throat, making him feel like he was choking.

“Why?” he had asked, the question heavy with confused anger. “Why would he do this?”

And Molly had looked at him, stared hard into his eyes. “Because Mary told him to.” 

He had wanted to ask why—demand to know why Mary would do such a thing. John had stared at his dead wife, standing behind Molly, and she had stared back, silent. 

“I think you know why,” Molly had replied, making John’s stomach clench.

Because he did know. Of course he did. Mary had tried to kill Sherlock once before. And John, like a fool, had gone back to her. Had _forgiven_ her, at Sherlock’s insistence. John had been furious with him for that, the anger switching to misplaced blame after Mary died. It had felt like Sherlock was sending him away. Like Sherlock didn’t want him. Like John Watson wasn’t enough. Looking back, he realizes Sherlock had been trying to protect himself. To protect them both from the woman John pretended was his loving wife. Even now, reaching from beyond the grave, she was still trying to take Sherlock away from him. And Sherlock was letting it happen because Mary convinced him it was for John. That John needed this: needed Sherlock to destroy himself, martyr himself upon the cross of John Watson. 

John’s stomach twists, and he clenches his teeth, forcing his legs to carry him toward the hospital. He stops at the front desk, asking if the small woman sitting there knows where to find Sherlock. She says he is on a tour with Culverton Smith. John repeats the name, tasting it on his tongue. The woman directs him to the third floor, and John steps into an elevator with his hands clenching into tight fists. 

The floors flicker by too fast, and he is suddenly stepping out into the hall. He looks to the left, sees nothing but doctors and nurses. Patients being wheeled by on gurneys. John turns right and takes a step. There are signs for a washroom, and he aims for that, planning to splash cold water on his face. Anything to help focus, so he can find Sherlock. A nurse stands outside the men’s room, and John offers her a small, tight smile as he moves toward the entrance. Her eyes flicker over his face, offering a polite, if distant, smile in return. 

A man walks out of the loo. He is tall, in a heavy wool coat, and John almost walks into him. The man sways back, trying to find his balance, and John’s hand shoots out on instinct, catching his arm. The limb is thin beneath the heavy, familiar fabric, and a thousand sensory notes hit him at once, overwhelming his senses with the smell of home.

“Excuse me—” John says, and the words stick in his throat when he looks up. His eyes widen, stunned. Sherlock looks down at him. His eyes are glacial blue, the pupils pinned to tiny dots in his pale face, and he stares like someone who has seen a ghost.

“John?”

* * *

After a much-needed shower, Sherlock had shooed Wiggins away. Answered his phone and promptly forgotten most of the conversation he’d had with a monster in a good man’s clothing. Dressed in a crisp blue shirt and black trousers, Sherlock had stood at the windows, watching, waiting. His body had thrummed with a fading high, and he had fingered the hard plastic of a new rig in his pocket. 

When a long black limo pulled up to the curb outside of Baker Street, he had rushed down to meet it. After a frankly disturbing glimpse of an ad campaign based on his accusation against Culverton Smith, calling him a serial killer, Sherlock had managed to steal the man’s phone. The monster had been so oblivious, his power making him too confident. A victim to the obvious. 

Sherlock had sent a text from his phone, deleted the evidence. Returned the device and slipped back into the limo. The ride to the hospital was pitiful, with Sherlock shaking his way through an impending withdrawal, dope sickness already sinking furious teeth into his spine. 

Relief washes over him as the vehicle rolls up outside the hospital, and he is out before it has come to a full stop. There is to be a tour, with Sherlock saying hello to the sick children upstairs. He cannot care less. All he wants is to get his fix and stave off the impending crash. 

“Just be a second,” he tells Culverton. A nurse leads him to the bathroom, promising to wait outside. She is a fan, and Sherlock doesn’t care. All he cares about is getting the needle into his arm and finishing this plan. 

The point slips beneath his skin with ease, and Sherlock bites back an almost sexual groan as the cocaine rips through his veins. The shaking eases, and he discards the used needle in a sharps box on the wall. Rolling out his stiff shoulders, he straightens his coat, pausing as he catches sight of his reflection in the bathroom mirror. His skin is pale, sallow, cheeks and chin darkened by scruffy, unkempt stubble, bordering on too long, yet not quite a beard. He scratches a hand over the hair, squinting, and shrugs. He cannot recall the last time he shaved, and, honestly, that is not even close to a concern at the moment. Combing fingers through his hair, he heads toward the bathroom exit. There is a spring in his step before he stumbles, pain lancing through his body. He tastes blood at the back of his throat and swallows it down.

 _Save John Watson_.

He is trying, and he’ll die trying if that is what it takes. 

Sherlock steadies himself, breathing slowly. Once his head clears, vision sharpened by the poison running through his veins, he makes his way out of the bathroom. As he turns the corner, someone almost barrels into him, and he stumbles again. A hand grabs his arm with a sturdy grip, and Sherlock finds his balance. Looking down to thank the stranger, the breath whooshes out of him as if the man had sunk his fist into Sherlock’s gut, rather than reaching out to steady him.

Blue eyes look up at him, depthless as the ocean, and Sherlock feels something rip through his chest.

“John?” he asks, because it can’t be true, this impossible image before him. It simply cannot be real—the drugs must be to blame. A hallucination, a betrayal of the brain. “ _John_?”

“Oh—oh my god, Sherlock.” John’s voice is shocked, rough, and his hand tightens on Sherlock’s shoulder. That point of contact becomes everything, Sherlock’s focus narrowing down to that one thing. “Jesus, Sherlock—what did you _do?”_

The words wash over him like white noise, unimportant. Because John is looking at him, talking to him. John is _here_ , and Sherlock feels something fall into place within his chest, almost like a missing part of him has finally found its way back. 

“Sherlock?” John gives him a little shake, and Sherlock blinks. His brain feels slow, mushy. Delayed. He frowns, looking hard at the man in front of him. Over John’s shoulder, the nurse is shooting them strange looks, uncertainty on her face. 

“Why are you here?” Sherlock asks, and John’s eyes go dark, shuttering. Sherlock winces, missing the warm surprise he had seen there seconds ago.

“Molly and Mrs. Hudson told me what you were doing,” John replies. His voice is hard, almost vicious. Sherlock tilts his head back, arms tensing. John seems to feel the rigidity of his body, and he holds tighter. “Sherlock…” he hesitates before slipping his hand down to Sherlock’s, fingers slotting into place between his own. Sherlock’s breath catches, John’s palm warm against his own. Before he can commit the feeling to his scattered memories, John is yanking up the sleeve of his jacket, pushing it to the elbow. 

The track marks, dark against Sherlock’s pale skin, are obvious. John’s breath catches, loud between them, and his face goes dark. “Jesus Christ, Sherlock,” he says, voice low, quivering with anger. “What the hell have you done?” 

Sherlock jerks his arm back, breaking John’s hold with the suddenness of the movement. “Nothing,” he replies, shaking the sleeve of his coat back over the marks. His expression hardens, the mask filtering through the haze of drugs in his system. “Why are you here, John?” he asks, repeating his earlier question. “I thought you didn’t want to see me.” 

John shifts, rubbing a hand over the nape of his neck. Guilt flickers over his face, and Sherlock sinks his teeth against his bottom lip. “I was worried,” he says, soft, and Sherlock shivers. John looks up at him, opening his mouth. Nothing emerges. Suddenly, Sherlock can’t stand the sight of him.

“I think you should leave,” Sherlock snaps, and he turns away, nodding at the nurse. She looks between them and hesitates. “Take me to see the kids,” Sherlock demands, but her eyes drop to his now-covered arm, and he sighs. 

“Mister Holmes,” she begins, voice cautious. “I’m not sure if that’s such a good idea.” 

Sherlock rolls his eyes, annoyance twisting his face. John’s presence at his back is enormous and sun-like, and he has to actively resist the urge to turn to him. To revolve around his brilliant glow, consuming the empty spaces in Sherlock’s chest. He opens his mouth to respond, when Culverton appears in the hallway, striding toward them. 

“Ah, Mister Holmes!” he calls, voice overly cheerful. “I was wondering if you still planned to join us?” 

The nurse glances over her shoulder, clearly uncomfortable. “Ah, Mister Smith—” she begins, pausing when the short man turns his eyes on her. Sherlock hears a soft noise and looks over his shoulder at John, who is squinting at Culverton with a weird look on his face. Sherlock studies him, and his addled brain fails to piece together enough data to understand why John looks like that. He turns back to see the nurse speaking to Culverton in a low tone, the words too soft for him to make out. Culverton watches Sherlock as she talks, his eyes glittering. 

“Ah, perhaps you’re right,” Culverton says, stepping forward. “Perhaps Mister Holmes is not in the right mind for speaking to the kids just now. Perhaps another time. However…” a sharp smile contorts his face, and Sherlock’s breath catches. “Perhaps I can at least show him my favourite room.” 

“Favourite room?” John enters the conversation, stepping up to Sherlock’s side. Their hands brush and Sherlock shivers at the warmth radiating from John’s skin. 

“Ah, who’s this, then?” Culverton asks. His eyes narrow, then widen with recognition. “Oh! Doctor Watson!” he claps his hands together, affecting a pleased expression. “How wonderful—Mister Holmes didn’t say you would be joining us.” 

John shoots Sherlock a look, face tense. Sherlock stares at the floor, his heart racing, and John turns back to Culverton.

“It’s uh…rather last minute, I suppose,” John replies, his voice smooth. Culverton nods, gesturing to the hallway.

“Well, the more the merrier, I always say!” he exclaims, still grinning that toothy grin. “Come along, then, Doctor Watson. Let me show you my favourite room.” 

* * *

Culverton’s favourite room is, apparently, the morgue. Sherlock watches as the small, sinister monster wearing men’s clothing scares off the morgue attendants. Watches him play with the stiff, grey face of a dead woman, much to the disgust of John. Culverton releases the dead woman’s chin, and John covers her face with a sheet, clearly unnerved. 

Culverton is talking to John, the words filtering slowly through the fog in Sherlock’s head.

“Stupid. So stupid.” 

“Why stupid?” John replies, and his voice is sharp. There’s a wary look on his face, and Sherlock squints at it. He’s missed something, can’t be sure what. _Soon,_ he thinks, eyes flickering to the door. 

“Well, all that effort,” Culverton is saying. “You don’t build a beach if you want to hide a pebble—you just find a beach!” 

Sherlock pauses, leaning his back against the metal edge of an industrial sink. His body quakes and he wraps his arms tight around himself, fearing he may fly apart. 

“And, if you want to hide a murder—or want to hide _lots and lots_ of murders, just find a…” Culverton pauses, and Sherlock frowns, the words clicking together. John is staring, and Culverton finishes the sentence with a smug little smile. “…hospital.” 

John’s head drops, brow furrowing. When he looks up, he steps closer to Culverton, and his head is tilted in that careful, dangerous way of his. “Can we be clear?” he asks, speaking slowly. “Are you confessing?”

“To what?” Culverton asks, pleasant. John licks his lips, tongue flicking out for a split second.

“The way you’re talking…” he begins, then stops, letting the unspoken words hang in the cold air of the morgue.

Sherlock shifts, his legs cramping, heart thundering in his ears. 

Smith is speaking again, and his voice is very soft. “Oh, sorry—” a pause and a small smile twitches over his lips. “Yes.” He chuckles, and John winces at the sound. “You mean, am I a serial killer? Or am I just trying to mess with your little head? Well, it’s true.” He moves forward, unaffected by John’s tight, tense expression. “I do like to mess with people.” He pauses again, and John’s eyes dart to Sherlock. He feels himself tremble and blinks, a fog settling over his vision. Culverton is speaking again, and the sound seems to emerge from the end of a long, endless tunnel. “…and yes, I am a _bit creepy_ , but that’s just my USP! I use it to sell breakfast cereal. But am I what he—” he points at Sherlock, who jumps, head twitching to the side. “Says I am?” Culverton moves around the table with the dead woman, passing John, who turns his body to follow his movements. Sherlock suppresses a smile at John’s obvious suspicion, refusing to turn his back on any potential enemy. Ever the soldier.

_Go to hell, Sherlock._

Mary’s words echo through his head, blanking out all else. Sherlock shuts his eyes. A wicked tremour works its way over his body, and he forces his eyes open again with a gasp. Culverton is pointing at him, body rigid with anger.

“Look at him, Doctor Watson!” he almost shouts. “Hm? Oh, no, I’ll lay it out for you!” Sherlock jumps at the sudden noise, eyes skating nervously away. The edges of his vision flicker and he grinds his teeth together, tightening his arms around his middle. 

Culverton is walking toward John, holding up two fingers on his right hand. When he speaks again, his voice is heavy with anger. “There are two possible explanations for what’s going on here. Either I’m a _serial killer_ or Sherlock Holmes—” he turns, pointing at Sherlock on the other side of the room. “Is off his tits on drugs!” He laughs, exasperated. “Delusional paranoia about a public personality? That’s not so special—it’s not even new!”

Smith is close to him now, still pointing, and he whispers to Sherlock, loud enough for John to hear where he stands by the dead woman. “I think you need to tell your faithful little friend how you’re wasting his time because you’re too high to know what’s real anymore.” 

John is frowning, doubt apparent in his face, and Sherlock’s entire body aches. 

_No, John. No, don’t believe him. He’s lying._

_Save John Watson._

The words blend together in his head, and Sherlock bites back a groan. 

* * *

John doesn’t know what to believe. Culverton speaks like a man weaving an elaborate falsehood, but Sherlock quivers with a noticeable high, standing just on the other side of the room. His eyes are wild and dazed, and John doesn’t know what to believe. Before he can sort out his thoughts, Sherlock is moving, speaking rapidly. Something about misjudging the time, drawing their attention to the sound of approaching footsteps, and the click of a walking cane. The sound is all too familiar to John, and he feels a faint pang in his leg at the memory.

“Is this another one of your drug-fuelled fantasies?” Culverton asks, and Sherlock’s reply is heavy, smug.

“Well, let’s see, shall we?” His voice rises, and John squints at him, confused. Sherlock calls over his shoulder toward the morgue doors, and John turns. “Faith! Stop loitering at the door and come in!” He pauses, taking on a sardonic, emphatic tone. “This is your father’s _favourite room_.” 

A woman enters, petite and blonde. Wearing a flowery blouse, she walks with a slight limp, relying on an ornate walking stick. John’s eyes flicker from her to Culverton, who raises his eyebrows at Sherlock.

“Come and meet his best friends,” Sherlock says, and he turns to the woman. Something happens to his face, then. John watches it twist with shock and fear.

“Dad?” the woman—Faith—says, a slight smile on her face. Her voice is edged with amusement. “What’s happening? What was that text?” The doors swing shut behind her, and she is still smiling. “Are you having one of your jokes?” Her eyes land on Sherlock, and she tilts her head with polite confusion. “Who are you?” she asks, and Sherlock’s face pales beneath the rough stubble covering his cheeks. 

“Who the hell are you?” Sherlock demands, and John’s stomach sinks. 

“Sherlock Holmes!” Culverton exclaims, smiling. “Surely, you recognize him.”

Faith lets out a soft gasp of excitement, shooting her father a genuine, if confused, smile. “Sherlock Holmes!” She looks to Sherlock, and John sucks in a heavy breath at the absolute, wrecked bewilderment on Sherlock’s face. “I _love_ your blog.” 

“You’re not her,” Sherlock says. John shifts, tensing at the shattered quality of his voice. “You’re not the woman who came to Baker Street.”

Faith looks just as confused as Sherlock, though nowhere near as stunned. “Well, no. Never been there.” 

John has heard enough. Sherlock is losing it. He and Faith are talking back and forth, Sherlock with the face of a lost child. Faith is adamant that she has never been anywhere near Baker Street, and Sherlock is struggling. He is vibrating, sweating, blinking in rapid, discordant bursts. His hands come up in front of his face, fingers twitching, eyes wide and wild. 

“Sherlock?” John calls, but Sherlock appears beyond hearing now. He shakes his head, shutting his eyes tight. They flash open, hands bracketing the space in front of his face.

“So who came to my flat?” His eyes lock on Faith, who insists it wasn’t her. Culverton was laughing, but now he’s not. Tension hums in the air, pulling the moment tight, read to snap. “You look…different,” Sherlock says, and John’s breath goes shallow.

He can feel it. They are balanced on the edge of something, of violence and breaking. Something is going to happen, and John can feel it, prickling the ingrained reality of his military-honed readiness for danger. “Sherlock, are you all right? Sherlock? Are you okay?” 

Sherlock doesn’t even acknowledge him. His eyes are wide, pupils pin-points in his hazy blue-green eyes. He lifts a shaking hand, jabbing a finger at Smith. “Watch him,” he says, and John’s eyes dart to the man. “He’s got a knife.” 

John frowns, eyes narrowing. He stares at them both, gaze flicking from Culverton to Sherlock. Faith looks uneasy, and Smith lets out an incredulous laugh. “I’ve got a what?” he says, and Sherlock’s voice rises, taking on a shaking edge of hysteria.

“You’ve got a scalpel! You picked it up from that table!” Sherlock is pointing at a tray. There is a gap in a line of surgical tools. “I saw you take it,” he insists, and John clenches his jaw tightly. 

Smith denies the accusation, showing his empty hands. The gesture pushes Sherlock over the edge.

“I saw you take it!” he cries, almost a shriek. His eyes are those of a wild animal, feral and without focus. “ _I saw you!”_

He jabs his hand toward Culverton, and the overhead lights flash off of surgical steel. A shocked exclamation escapes Smith’s open lips, and Faith presses a hand over her mouth. John steps forward, arm shooting out toward Sherlock. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, Sherlock—do you want to put that down?”

“Oh my god,” breathes Faith, and Sherlock is staring at her and her father. Sherlock shakes his head as if dazed. He takes a step back, a clumsy stumble, so unlike his usual grace that John feels dread coil tight and deep in his stomach. Sherlock’s head jerks up, and the look on his face is ferocious, wildly feral. He is pointing at Smith again, this time with his empty hand, and his voice hisses out like an animal’s.

 _“Stop laughing at me!”_

Culverton isn’t laughing, stopped laughing long ago. His hands come up, vulnerable, unarmed, and John’s tongue darts out over his bottom lip in a nervous tic.

“He’s not laughing, Sherlock,” he says, soft, trying to reach Sherlock through his disoriented anger. 

Sherlock’s reply comes in a vicious shout, as loud as John has ever heard him. “Stop laughing at me!” He shifts on his feet, rebalancing his weight in a too-slow movement that John can spot from a mile off. Sherlock lunges forward, aiming the scalpel toward Culverton, and John is surging toward him.

“Sherlock!” 

John is briefly aware of a scream, ripping through the air. _Faith,_ he thinks, distantly, closing the space between himself and Sherlock. Sherlock is quick, but he is clumsy, the drugs slowing him down, and John is faster. His left hand locks around Sherlock’s arm, shoulder twisting to press into Sherlock’s body. Sherlock’s breath, warm and too-quick, drifts over his face, and John brings the palm of his hand down hard on Sherlock’s fisted hold around the scalpel.

The blade falls to the floor with a clatter, and John takes Sherlock by the coat. In one smooth motion, years of training and experience taking over, he whirls and pushes Sherlock back until his spine meets the cold, hard wall of morgue shelves. John tries to be gentle, but the momentum and his own fear are too much, and he slams Sherlock into the steel with a reverberating noise. The air whooshes out of Sherlock’s body, and he makes a low sound of pain. His eyes are still too wide, unfocused, and John shouts into his face.

“Stop it!” He pulls Sherlock forward, and Sherlock’s expression is absolutely lost, empty of anything save for panic, and, desperate, John thumps him back again. “Stop it now! What are you doing!”

Sherlock stares at him, mouth open, no sound emerging. There is nothing of Sherlock Holmes in that look, just pure, untethered fear, and John’s heart clenches. His hands tighten in the thick wool of the coat, and a thought passes through his head: _have I lost him already?_

The detective’s eyes are pinned over John’s shoulder, locked on Culverton. John looks back at Smith and his daughter, and his face goes hard. 

“Get out,” he says, and Culverton shoots him a frown. He opens his mouth as if to argue, and John’s eyes flash. “I said, get _out_.” He forces Captain Watson into the words, and the small man goes white. He nods and grabs his daughter’s hand, pulling her with him. 

The door swings closed behind them, and John looks back to Sherlock. His eyes are still beyond John, but Sherlock is blinking now, softer confusion slipping over his face. John stares at him, desperation warring with guilt because he wants to hit him. Wants to strike Sherlock, and destroy that helpless, wrecked look of uncertainty twisting Sherlock’s face. 

But violence will solve nothing, and it won’t change anything. Mary will still be dead, and Sherlock will still be here, like this, half-dead of a stretched-out, self-induced overdose. 

“Sherlock,” John murmurs. “Sherlock.” He releases one of his hands, uncurling stiff fingers, reaching up to drift them lightly over one of Sherlock’s sallow, sunken cheeks. Sherlock flinches, nostrils flaring, still the wild animal. John continues the slow, soothing strokes, and, gradually, Sherlock’s eyes lose their feral light, blinking until his vision seems to focus. His gaze shifts, landing on John’s face, and his brow furrows.

“John?” 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here, have a bit of angst. One more chapter to go!

Sherlock’s head is a riot. A maelstrom of colours, sounds, and flashing lights. He feels detached from his body, floating above and outside of himself. There are screams, hard, shouting voices, and the feeling of pressure, followed by distant pain. A metal crash, and solid, cold stability against his back. 

There is a hand on his face, a light touch, and Sherlock blinks, trying to find his way back to himself. He blinks again, the fight-or-flight response of his body trickling away, adrenaline leaving his muscles heavy and sore. John’s face swims into focus, and he blinks again, finding those ocean eyes looking into his. Fingers stroke over his stubbled cheek, gentle comfort after furious depersonalization, and Sherlock sinks into the contact. 

“John?” he asks, and his voice is a raspy murmur. John nods, a small gesture, and his eyes lose some of their darkness. “John,” Sherlock breathes, repeating. He tips forward, their foreheads resting together.

“Hey,” John replies, bringing his other hand up to bracket Sherlock’s face between his steady palms. “There he is.” John’s tone is gentle, grounding, and Sherlock’s eyes close, the final dregs of furious stress sighing out from his parted lips. All that remains is the deep ache in his lower back and the faint humming of a distant headache. He ignores both in favour of focusing on John’s hands on his face. His skin against his. The gentle pattern of his breathing.

“I’m sorry, John,” Sherlock says, and the words break inside his mouth. John’s fingers tighten in a brief spasm, then relax, thumbs stroking over Sherlock’s jaw. 

“What for?” John asks, and Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut tight.

“For Mary,” he whispers, small tremours working their way through his body. “For—for _everything_.” 

John’s hand slides to the nape of his neck, gripping with gentle pressure. “Oh, Sherlock…” The action coaxes Sherlock closer, and he steps forward, face pressing into John’s hair. John’s arm slips around his waist, and he finds himself held against a warm, sturdy form. The embrace infuses his body with calm, and Sherlock has to fight the urge to slump. John’s fingers play over his jaw, coaxing Sherlock to raise his head. John looks up, into his eyes, and Sherlock’s breath catches at the liquid warmth held in that gaze.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” John says, voice infused with genuine insistence. “Mary’s death was not your fault, and I’m sorry I ever made you think it was.” His hand tightens, gripping sleek, dark curls at the base of Sherlock’s neck. “I’m sorry, Sherlock— _I am_. Me. Everything you’ve done—” John’s voice breaks off, and he shakes his head, lost for words. He clears his throat and focuses back on Sherlock’s face, his expression sharp and earnest. “You deserved— _deserve_ —so much more than this. More than what I have done, and more than what Mary did to you, first by shooting you, and then this…” he gestures, indicating the wretched state of Sherlock. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, and Sherlock’s chest aches. 

There’s a hollow there, still, but the pain is different—the ache is sweeter, softer, and Sherlock finds his next action the most natural thing in the world. After all the struggle and the pain following Mary’s death. After the hurt of watching John turn his back on him, and marry the woman who nearly took him away from Sherlock for good. 

After the two years spent faking his death, hurting for John’s steady presence every second, it is so easy. Just the easiest thing in the world to slip an arm around John’s shoulders and pull him close. To cup his jaw in a finally steady hand. To drag his thumb over his chin, up to his mouth, smoothing along the warm curve of John’s bottom lip. 

It is the easiest thing in the world for Sherlock to kiss that open mouth. And the only rational following course of action is for John to kiss him back, arms rising to wind around Sherlock’s neck, pulling him closer. John makes a soft noise against his lips, hands tangling in Sherlock’s hair to deepen the kiss, and there is nothing that makes more sense than that response. 

They separate with a slow, gentle press of lips, Sherlock’s eyes fluttering open to find John already looking at him. His face is warm, infused with a certainty that takes Sherlock’s breath away. He ducks for another kiss, tasting the sweet, wet heat of John’s mouth, and feels John smile against his lips. 

When Sherlock leans back, John’s arms are a solid, secure weight on his shoulders, and Sherlock feels the hole ripped through his chest begin to close.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” he says, repeating John’s earlier words. Bending to brush his lips over John’s cheek, he closes his eyes. “Not a single thing.” 

John smiles, grips him close, and Sherlock’s mind goes blank, goes black, goes silent.

* * *

After their reconnection in the morgue, Sherlock had collapsed in John’s arms. His eyes had rolled back, body going limp. He had not responded to John’s attempts to rouse him. His initial fear had been overdose, but Sherlock was breathing, albeit through ragged, too-shallow gasps. 

Despite Sherlock’s almost assault, Culverton had swept back into the room at John’s panicked shout for help, two doctors following in his wake. Sherlock was rushed into ICU, determined to be too close to the edge of actual death for comfort, and given a private room in the hospital. 

Lingering at his bedside, John looks down at the detective. His eyes rove over the long, lean form, taking in the shadows etched into Sherlock’s face. The thinness of his body, the dark track marks marching up the inside of his left forearm. Sinking into a chair, John reaches out, cradling Sherlock’s limp hand in his palms. The long fingers are lax, nails broken and jagged, the veins a dark blue under paper-pale skin. John traces his fingertips over the creases crisscrossing Sherlock’s palm, and feels the faint bite of guilt, gnawing at his stomach. He pushes it away, grinding his teeth together. Now is not the time for him to wallow—not when Sherlock needs him here, the sturdy rock to his stormy waters. 

John folds the hand between his and settles, searching Sherlock’s face. His eyes begin to droop, heavy, scratchy with sleep. It feels like the grit of sand, reminding him of the desert, and the bullet that brought him back to London. 

Looking at that pale, familiar face, John knows he owes so much to this man. Owes him not only his life but his sanity—his peace of mind and his entire being. 

His heart and his soul.

John’s eyes close, and he drifts. Mary comes to him, walking through a dark space. Sand blows through the empty air, and John squints into the distance, but there is nothing determinate on the endless horizon, the area a negation of reality. 

With a jolt, he realizes he has not seen his dead wife since Molly and Mrs. Hudson showed him the DVD. She had not been there in the morgue with them, and she had not come into the scant inches of shared breath moments before he and Sherlock had shared their first kiss. 

She walks toward him now, a flickering image shifting and blending into the nothing space of almost-sleep. John’s body feels incorporeal as if he is the ghost, and he waits until the woman who was once his wife stops in front of him.

“John,” she says, and his name sounds like empty air, swirling through the gap between them. 

“Mary.”

Her face tightens, then smooths, and a fierce light in her eyes dies out. They look blank, black and hollow, and John’s resolve strengthens at the sight.

“So,” she says, voice an intangible breath on the airless energy thrumming through this empty place. “You figured it out, then?” 

John doesn’t need to ask her to clarify. They stand inside his own head: a hypnagogic hallucination born between John’s waking and sleeping mind. He understands the unspoken words because they are imprinted into his very skin, blood, and bone:

_You love him, don’t you?_

“Yes,” John replies, the words steady, without hesitation. “Yes, I have.”

_Yes, I do._

Mary’s mouth is a thin, taut line. 

“I see.” 

Silence blends between them, filling in the undeclared, unexpressed words. John holds his ground, relaxed and at ease. For the first time since Afghanistan—perhaps the first time in his life—he feels at peace. 

“Goodbye, John,” Mary tells him, and John nods. He feels nothing for her now, not even anger. That part of his life is over, and Mary’s negative influence on his past is finished. It will always linger, in its own way, at the back of his head. Next to the nightmares of dead soldiers and friends bleeding out into the sands. Beside the memories of terror-filled nights spent hiding under his childhood bed, clutching Harry’s hand. Trying to keep them both safe from the threat of falling fists and alcohol-fuelled rage. 

Alongside the unforgettable bite of a bullet into skin and muscle, John knows Mary will linger, an intangible stain. But he can move forward, just as he has from all the rest. The tragedies of his life need not weigh him down—at least, not every second of every day—and the load is not his to carry alone.

“Goodbye, Mary,” John replies. He opens his eyes to find Sherlock’s hand curled around his own, his glacial-blue gaze, half-shuttered beneath lowered lashes, locked on John’s face. 

“John,” Sherlock breathes, rasping, and John leans forward with a smile on his lips.

“Hello, love,” he says, and Sherlock’s answering smile is brighter than the dark wisps of the dream, driving away the last, lingering black at the edges of his vision. 

* * *

Sherlock’s recovery is slow—an agonized crawl toward health. His body is in a poor state: borderline early-stage kidney failure, the beginnings of endocarditis. Bone-deep dehydration and a general lack of care that makes John’s heart ache. Alongside it all, Sherlock shakes his way through withdrawal, his teeth chattering loudly in his head as he sweats drugs and poison from his system. He whines and writhes, eyes shifting sightlessly through body-jerking tremours and flaring pain. 

John remains at his bedside whenever possible, gripping Sherlock’s hand. Wiping a cold, damp cloth over his face and upper body, soothing Sherlock through the tortured dreams and almost-hallucinations his body drags up. He is forcibly reminded of just how far Sherlock had gone for him—all the way to hell. 

It is a slow climb back to the surface. 

Hardly anything can pull John away, and he refuses to leave unless absolutely necessary. Aside from heading home for quick showers and changes of clothes, and forcing himself to eat, he remains. Molly and Mrs. Hudson and his neighbour take turns looking after Rosie, rotating in and out, stopping by to visit Sherlock between fits of withdrawal. John doesn’t want Rosie to see them like this, with Sherlock a sobbing mess, barely conscious most days, and John clinging to him with a desperation he cannot begin to name.

So he remains, spending every waking—and nearly every sleeping—moment at Sherlock’s bedside, until an emergency calls him away. The phone call comes through near 4am, and John is jolted out of a reverie. Raising his head from where it was pillowed on Sherlock’s bed, jerking backwards in the chair, John blinks and grabs at his ringing phone. In the bed, Sherlock whines, twitching through another fever dream, his face shiny and wet with heavy sweat. John smooths a damp tangle of curls from the detective’s forehead, and answers the call, pausing to step into the hallway. 

Despite the dropped charges by Culverton against Sherlock for the attempted assault, a police officer lingers outside the door, and John nods to him. The officer nods back, and John strides down the hall.

“Hello?” he says into the phone and a burst of brief static answers. Wincing, John holds the device back from his ear, before gingerly returning it. “Hello?” he says again, and a voice answers.

“Is this John Watson?” It is a woman, professional tone making his breathing speed up.

“Speaking,” John replies, heart thudding.

“Sir, there’s been an accident.” John’s stomach plummets, and the woman goes on. “You are listed as the emergency contact for Harry Watson.”

“Oh, god,” John breathes. He shakes his head, forcing away the rising panic. “I’ll—I’ll be right there.” 

The woman provides him with an address, and John rings off. He hesitates, then rushes back into Sherlock’s room. Pausing to cup Sherlock’s sweaty face in his palm, John presses a kiss to his wet forehead. 

“I’ll be back soon,” he promises, stroking a thumb over his cheek before grabbing up his jacket. Back out in the hall, he jerks his head at the door, looking at the officer outside. “Keep an eye on him, would you?” The man nods, and John sets off down the hall, taking long, quick strides to the elevator. It takes ages to rise to his floor, and by the time he steps inside, John is nearly vibrating with energy. 

The doors open to the main floor, and John hurries out, making for the entrance. 

Hardly a few steps out into the cold, early morning air, John freezes. The sun is just beginning to rise, peeking over the horizon and spilling pale hues into the sky. Something hums in his head, a long-ago memory that plants his feet and holds him in place.

_It’s Mrs. Hudson—she’s been shot._

John’s lips part, his breath whooshing out in a loud sigh, pushed from his lungs with shock.

_Jesus, Sherlock! She’s dying, we have to go._

His eyes go wide, and his hands clench at his sides.

_You machine. Sod this. Sod this._

John turns on his heels and rushes back through the door. A nurse leaps out of his way, calling after him in a stern voice. John ignores her—ignores the stares and shocked responses. He shoots past the elevator, the doors closing with a ding, the numbers counting upwards. His legs carry him to the stairs, and John barrels through the door hands first, grabbing at the railing as he lunges up the first few steps. His shoes hammer out a thudding rhythm as he climbs, breath coming fast and even. 

There’s a rushing in his ears, and John wonders how he ever thought he needed a cane. 

Bursting out onto the third floor, his momentum carries him down the hall, feet skidding on the linoleum floor. John throws out an arm, hand hitting the wall to keep him upright, and sprints past closed doors and humming machines. 

The floor seems utterly empty, dead-silent, with no one outside Sherlock’s room. The door is closed and locked, and John throws himself against it with a shout, adrenaline propelling him forward. The door buckles then holds, and he looks around with wild eyes. 

His gaze lands on a heavy fire extinguisher, and John grabs it, turning to slam the metal base against the door handle. The noise draws the police officer into the hallway, and the other man rushes forward just as John pushes into the room. 

There is a figure standing over Sherlock, backing away with raised hands. John’s eyes flicker to Sherlock, and the adrenaline coursing through his body slows the scene to crawl, painting everything with startling clarity. 

Sherlock’s eyes are wide and bloodshot, his face purple-red as he gasps for air, his pupils pinpoints as he stares at nothing and no one. Culverton stands at the foot of his bed now, arms in the air, and John lunges forward, slamming him back against the wall. 

“What did you do?” he snarls, and his fingers curl hard enough to bruise, gripping the man’s arms. Culverton affects an innocent expression. 

“I wasn’t doing—” he begins, tone bemused, and John slams a hand hard against the wall beside his head. 

“Shut your lying mouth, you disgusting excuse for a human being.” The words hiss out from clenched teeth. His body aches, hands clenching into fists with the hope for violence. But John holds himself in check, Sherlock’s loud, laboured gasps drawing him out of the red haze.

“Restrain him,” John says, jerking his head at the officer. The man nods and steps forward, pulling Culverton’s hands behind him. Turning his back on them both, John moves to Sherlock’s side, bending to look him in the face. Sherlock’s eyes are wide and glazed, and his breathing is growing shallow. He seems to be fading away, and fingertip-sized bruises are rising on his face as if someone had gripped with their palms over his mouth and nose. 

The faint explosive signs of broken blood vessels show in his eyes and over his cheeks, and John has seen enough suffocation cases to recognize what they are. Sherlock’s earlier gasps for air slot the facts into place, and his face darkens with rage. 

But something else is wrong, and John stares into Sherlock’s eyes as they fall half-shut. He digs his fingers against the pulse point beneath Sherlock’s jaw and finds it too low, too slow. Sherlock’s lips look faintly blue, his skin going an ashen grey. John’s eyes flicker to the morphine drip beside the bed, and the realization hits him like a bullet.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathes, and jabs at the call button for a nurse. Carefully, he detaches the IV line, shoving it away. By the time a nurse arrives, Sherlock’s skin looks grey. John is breathing air into his lungs, pausing to count out five seconds before sealing his mouth over Sherlock’s for another breath. 

The nurse looks at them with wide eyes, and John pauses in his airway maintenance long enough to bark for her to bring Narcan, and she hurries away, leaving him to bend and breathe for Sherlock again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere in this story, and I can't remember where, there is a typo where two words combined into one, and formed another word. If you see it, please, for the love of Fandom, tell me because I cannot find it now.


	7. Chapter 7

Sherlock wakes with an aching body, feeling like his lungs have been filled with sand. His eyes open, flutter, momentarily blinded by light and a grey fog. John's face swims into view, and a relieved smile transforms his face from a mask of worry to something radiant. 

"You gave me a scare," John says, and Sherlock coughs, clearing his throat when he opens his mouth, and only a low rasp emerges. John strokes the tips of his fingers over Sherlock's temple, down to his jaw, and makes a soft, soothing sound. "Rest," he murmurs, and Sherlock turns his face into the pillow, closing his eyes. 

* * *

When he opens his eyes again, John is still there, watching him with dark, hollow-looking eyes. Sherlock shifts, looking at the man at his side, and John tilts forward, taking the hand Sherlock offers up in his.

"Hello," Sherlock grates out, swallowing hard. His face hurts, lungs bruised, and body sore, but John's touch is a comforting balm, his skin cool and dry. 

"Hey," John murmurs. He drags the chair closer, balancing his elbows on the bed. "How do you feel?"

Sherlock winces, licking his dry lips. "Fantastic," he croaks, and a weak smile shapes John's mouth into something tenuous and vulnerable. It doesn't reach his eyes, leaving them dark and deeply shadowed.

"Thought I lost you," John whispers, his voice thick. "Again." He clears his throat, bowing his head as if in thought, wiping the back of his hand over his eyes. Sherlock catches his fingers in his and brings John's hand to his mouth, brushing warm skin with his lips. John's head rises, eyes widening, then going soft, and Sherlock fixes him with a steady stare.

"I'm not going anywhere," he says, rough tone earnest, shaping the words with a slow mouth. Sherlock pauses before adding, "not without you." 

John makes a sound, low in his throat. It is quiet, watery, and Sherlock drags himself into a sitting position. John's hands touch his chest, protests on his lips, and Sherlock breathes them in, covering John's mouth with his own. He kisses him in a painfully slow, tender way, doing his best to fill John's lungs with the unspoken promises burning in the space around his heart. 

When he leans away, John's eyes are closed, lips slightly parted, his face the image of bliss. Sherlock can't resist kissing him again, and John's tongue brushes his this time, coaxing an almost soundless moan from Sherlock. The whisper of pleasure hums between them, sparking in the air. Sherlock finds himself grabbing at John's shoulders, forcing his heavy arms to move, fingers clutching in the fabric of John's shirt. John's breath catches, emerging in a groan. Sherlock struggles forward, almost off the edge of the bed, trying to get closer, before John finally breaks the kiss with a winded laugh. 

"Easy," he murmurs, smiling with kiss-swollen lips, helping Sherlock relax back into the bed. "Plenty of time for that." 

Sherlock pushes his face into a pout, settling back against the pillows at John's urging. "We have a lot of time to make up for," he points out, and John laughs again. Sherlock can't stop the smile that rises on his lips at the sound, and the pout fades.

"Mm, I know." John's voice drops to a low rumble, full of purring promise. "Soon as you're up for it, we're going to fix that." 

The words send a shiver down Sherlock's spine, and his fingers tighten on the blankets. "I better hurry up and recover, then," he replies, and the look John shoots his way is borderline predatory. Sherlock shivers again, watching John's tongue flick out to wet his lower lip. 

"You'd better." 

* * *

In the following weeks, Sherlock makes leaps and bounds toward his recovery. The almost overdose from the increased morphine throws him back into withdrawal, but it is monitored, and John guides him through it with gentle hands and soft words. Every time Sherlock slips beneath the waves, drowning in fever dreams and shaking need, John is there to pull his head above the water, cradling him in the darker moments. 

Culverton, after his arrest for suspicion of attempted murder, spews forth endless confessions. The call regarding John’s sister is proven to be a ploy, one of the nurses forced under duress by Culverton, trying to remove John from the scene. His face is plastered over the news, now for a very different reason than before. Years of serial killing have all but obliterated his once charitable reputation.

Lestrade visits a week after the attempted overdose, and Sherlock interrogates him from his hospital bed. With sweat drying on his brow, hair plastered to his skull, he demands details, warning Lestrade not to leave out a single word. John laughs and mediates between them, with Sherlock refusing to relent until Lestrade promises to let him listen to the confession tapes once he is back to work. 

Lestrade watches John tilt forward to comb Sherlock's hair into place with his fingers, touch lingering on flushed skin. The DI favours them both with a warm, pleased smile, and Sherlock doesn't even bother to glare at him. 

"Glad to see you looking almost human again," Lestrade says to Sherlock, who rolls his eyes, but turns his face into John's palm with a softness that eases the hard lines of his frown.

"Thank you," he replies, and both John and Lestrade look shocked by the genuine sincerity in the detective's voice. 

"You're welcome," Lestrade hums, and Sherlock ignores the smile he shares with John as Sherlock closes his eyes. 

* * *

Discharge day arrives at last, and John walks beside Sherlock as a nurse wheels them to the front door in a wheelchair. Sherlock had opened his mouth to protest at the sight of it, but John had shot him a warning glance.

"Sorry, Mister Holmes," the nurse apologizes, giving him a sympathetic smile. "Hospital policy." 

Settling into the padded seat, Sherlock affects a pout, more for John's benefit than his own, and hardly genuine. John grins, catching on, and Sherlock can't help the thrill of excitement in his stomach at the sight of it. The response is only partially eclipsed by the bone-deep relief he feels when the front doors come into view. The nurse wheels him to the entrance, and John fits his hands under Sherlock's arms, lifting him to his feet with gentle strength. Sherlock only sways for a moment, then John's arm is around his shoulders, his steady presence a solid pillar at his side. 

"Thank you," John says to the nurse, and she flashes him a smile just on the other side of professional, almost flirty. Sherlock scowls, but John seems to have eyes only for the man steadied by his arm, and Sherlock softens. 

"Thanks," he adds, and the nurse favours him with a warm expression. 

John leads him out of the building, and the feeling of fresh air on Sherlock's face feels like surfacing after endless time spent beneath the water's surface, fighting for breath. He lets out a quiet sigh, his body loosening, and John shoots a grin his way. 

A black car idles out front, and Sherlock's back is immediately stiff, narrowed eyes taking in the sleek lines of the familiar Jaguar. John's hand rubs soothing circles on his side, and he looks at him with suspicion. 

"It's just a car," John reassures. "Mycroft called to say he would send it to take us hom—to Baker Street." John clears his throat over the correction, and Sherlock squints at him. But John rushes them toward the vehicle as quickly as Sherlock can move, and he lets the moment pass—for now. John helps him into the car, the seats cradling his slow body like a well-worn glove. Sherlock's head rolls, cheek pressing to cold leather, watching John settle beside him. 

_Take us home._

The completed sentence whispers through Sherlock's head, and he reaches out to lay his hand on John's thigh. John jumps, then smiles, covering Sherlock's fingers with his own. The car pulls away from the hospital, into traffic, and they ride in silence, comfortable and relaxed. However, the closer they draw to Baker Street, the more Sherlock feels tension building in John's body. The long muscle of John's leg beneath Sherlock's hand grows tight as the distance shortens under the Jaguar's quiet wheels. By the time they pull up outside the familiar block of flats, John is thrumming with nervous energy, and Sherlock itches to take it away. To quiet the uncertainty digging deep lines of hesitation into John's face. 

John helps him out of the car, and they approach the flat, stopping when the door swings open. Mrs. Hudson steps out onto the sidewalk, cooing over them both.

"Oh, Sherlock," she murmurs, enfolding him in a warm hug that smells like flour and floral perfume. "You're much too thin," she tells him, stern, and Sherlock grins. John shifts beside them, a strained smile on his face. Mrs. Hudson's eyes dart to him and back to Sherlock.

"Okay?" she whispers in his ear, and Sherlock hesitates, then nods. 

"It will be," he replies, his voice a breath, and she nods back, releasing him and stepping away. 

"You must be exhausted," she says, and looks at John again, standing there with that stiff smile still in place. "Both of you. I made up the beds with fresh sheets." Making shooing motions, Mrs. Hudson ushers them inside, closing the door behind. "You boys let me know if you need anything, okay?" 

When John remains silent, Sherlock nods, smiling at her. "Thank you, Mrs. Hudson," he replies, and she pats his arm. 

"Not a problem, dear." She fixes them with a stern look. "Now, upstairs to rest, both of you. You look dead on your feet." She gives them both a light nudge, and John shakes his head, as if emerging from a daze. With slightly robotic movements, he slips an arm around Sherlock's waist and starts guiding him up the stairs. 

Mrs. Hudson watches until they reach the landing, then disappears into her own flat, the door closing with a soft click behind her. 

John leads him up the last few steps to Sherlock's flat, and Sherlock's breathing speeds up. John's discomfort is palpable, almost immense in the moment before they enter the flat. To Sherlock's relief, any sign of the slap-dash drug lab in the kitchen has been erased. The flat is clean and fresh, curtains open to let in warm sunlight from the surprisingly mild afternoon. 

They step into the sitting room, and John freezes. Sherlock stumbles and catches his balance, thrown off by John's sudden stop. John's arm falls from around his waist, and Sherlock turns to find him standing just inside the door at the top of the stairs. 

His eyes are fixed on the red carpet, and Sherlock studies his stony face. John seems locked in place, the lines of his back and shoulders tense. His left hand curls into a fist, shaking, and Sherlock feels his own face soften.

Moving forward, he slips his hands around John's wrists, palms drifting over his arms, to his shoulders. "John," he murmurs, calling to him from some great distance that he cannot see, but can certainly feel. It stretches out in the depths of John's unfocused eyes, and Sherlock repeats his name, offering a tether. "John."

John blinks, his face changing as he clicks back to reality. He raises his eyes to Sherlock's face, and the detective sees they are wet with unshed tears, clinging to John's pale lashes. As Sherlock watches, one breaks free, spilling down John's cheek, dripping off his chin. Wordlessly, Sherlock steps closer. Gripping John's shoulder, sliding his other hand to the small of his back, over the steel spine that holds this miracle of a man together, Sherlock cups the nape of John's neck and pulls him close. 

"Welcome home, John." 

A small, broken sound escapes from John, muffled where John presses his face into Sherlock's shoulder. John's hands come up, fingers gripping shirt, and Sherlock presses his nose to warm skin beneath John's ear, breathing him in. John's tears are wet on his face, and, when John turns his head, his lips taste like salt. 

"Sherlock." His name emerges between them from John's mouth, breathed like a prayer, and Sherlock tightens his hold, pressing their bodies together. There is a plea in that spoken word, humming between them, and Sherlock kisses the trails of tears from John's face.

"Yes," he whispers, breathing seawater against John's lips, and drinking in the flood of need and wanting seeping from John's skin. "Yes, John." 

Their mouths crash together, a sudden surge of desperation blurring the edges of their individual boundaries—superseding the limits of who they are apart from one another. Their tongues tangle, bodies sharing hot breath, and Sherlock can't tell where he ends, and John begins. He does not care, letting John consume him with eager hands and hungry lips. 

Somehow, they make it to Sherlock's bedroom, and John is over top of him, held up on hands and knees, unwrapping Sherlock from his clothing like a gift. The air in the room is cold on his bare skin before John's mouth is moving over his chest, caressing his neck, sternum, and stomach with warm kisses and wet tongue. They shift, roll, and Sherlock is tugging John's shirt over his head, pulling his jeans down to his ankles. 

Bare to one another, they come together, hot skin sticking with sweat as it beads and trickles over their tangled bodies. 

_"John."_ Sherlock pants the name with a desperation that has John grabbing his face and licking into his mouth, their hips slotting together. 

"Oh, god," John whispers, and he eases Sherlock onto his back, rutting slowly against him. "Sherlock, oh—oh _god_ , Sherlock." The slow drag of hot, hard skin against his own erection is enough to make Sherlock's spine curve, body arching at the jolt of pleasure. 

Their words devolve into quiet noises, sharing soft moans and one loud, needy whine from Sherlock between their eager mouths. John presses light kisses into the curve of his neck, pausing to slick his palm with his tongue before taking them both in hand. His compact grip barely encompasses them both. Lubricating his own hand, Sherlock reaches between their shifting hips to wrap his fingers around John's fist. 

John groans against his neck, and Sherlock's head falls back on the pillows. 

"Oh," he breathes, eyes flying wide at the first sliding movement of their joined hands, then dropping to half-mast, face flushing with arousal. " _Ohhhh…_ " John thrusts into their fists, his hard length sliding against Sherlock's. His eyes are tightly shut, mouth open as he gasps soft little noises in sync with the movement of his hips. 

The pleasure is a building pressure at the base of Sherlock's spine, sending goosebumps rippling over his body. John's mouth fastens on his shoulder, sucking colour to the flushed skin, and Sherlock wraps his free arm around his waist, pulling him in tight. 

John's teeth sink against his skin, light enough not to break through, and white flashes over Sherlock's vision. His body jerks, tenses, then releases, and he spills over their hands, lubricating John's sloppy thrusts until he, too, is coming. His mouth opens in a quivering cry, and Sherlock kisses the sound into his own throat, holding John close as they both shiver through their climaxes. 

Their bodies finally settle, and Sherlock stares up at the ceiling, sweat drying on his skin, listening to John's heavy breathing mingling with his. John's face is against his shoulder, his eyelashes a light, tickling sensation on Sherlock's skin. 

"John," he murmurs, nosing at the other man's temple until John raises his head. Sherlock kisses his swollen mouth, John's hands bracketing his face with gentle, aching tenderness. Looking into his eyes, Sherlock repeats himself, the name emerging fervent and tremulous, pulled from deep within his chest. _"John."_

"I know," John replies, and he brushes a tangled lock of sweat-heavy hair from Sherlock's face before pressing his lips there. "I know." Resting their foreheads together, he looks Sherlock in the eye and smiles.

"I love you, too." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _And then they lived happily ever after (and The Final Problem never happened) and **Johnlock is real!**_
> 
> I had so much fun writing this Fix-It Fic, and it really helped me process a lot of the awful crap that happened in _The Lying Detective_ (even tho parts of that episode are some of my favourite in the series). Thank you to Deb for bidding on me for _Fandom Trumps Hate_ and for this wonderful prompt!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [trembling tender little sigh - [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23269264) by [TyrianMoon (CelaSilver)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelaSilver/pseuds/TyrianMoon)




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